


Meet me at Ghost Rock

by nightshade002



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, I'll add more tags and characters as they appear, M/M, Mermaid Matsukawa, Mermaid Oikawa, Mermaid Suga, Mermaid Yahaba, also i know i only said oikawa was suffering but i was thinking about it and now iwaizumi will too, also there will probably be matsuhana if i can get over my fear of writing them out of character, haha sorry guys, like half of the characters will be mermaids, mermaid au, oikawa will be suffering, update: there will be matsuhana
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 27,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6679165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightshade002/pseuds/nightshade002
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oikawa is absolutely not allowed to go as close to the shore as he always does. Matsukawa keeps telling him he'll go blind because of all the time he spends out of the water.</p>
<p>Iwaizumi has to leave the island of Seijou soon in order to earn money so he and his mom have a place to live. Hanamaki keeps reminding him of every possible thing that could go wrong in six months at sea.</p>
<p>(There is a disappointing lack of mermaid aus so I took it upon myself to write one. I'll try to keep a semi-reliable update schedule but I make no promises)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Oikawa always wondered what the rest of the world looked like. Past the endless blue of the ocean, only occasionally broken by the ships that sailed through. The closest he could get to seeing what happened on land was from about 60 meters away from the port of a fairly large island in the middle of the ocean. And since his eyesight wasn’t necessarily the best (Mattsun would say it’s because of how much time he spends above the water) he couldn’t even see much. He was currently trying to get a closer look at the port, hiding behind one of the large rocks that jutted out of the water. He knew he couldn’t afford to be seen by any of the people that lived on the land. There were tales of mermaids going too close to land and either being captured by the land dwellers or even killed. Despite the risks, Oikawa was still curious.

“Oikawa, what are you doing?” A voice hissed at him, startling him. Oikawa spun around quickly. “How many times do you need to be told it’s not safe to get this close?”

“Mattsun, you scared me,” Oikawa sighed dramatically, putting a hand over his heart. “I’m not that close. I just want to see more of what they’re doing. And you can’t honestly tell me you’re not curious either.”

“Just because you’re curious doesn’t mean you should be out here alone.” Matsukawa scolded him. “And of course I’m curious. Unfortunately, Suga is pissed that you disappeared again. He sent me to find you and bring you back.” Matsukawa smiled deviously, “Of course, he never specified when to bring you back.”

Oikawa, who had been pouting as he was scolded, instantly brightened up and smiled. “I am known for being hard to find. And with all these rocks here, it would take you quite some time to find me again if I swam away when you first found me.” 

“Exactly.”

Oikawa and Matsukawa both swam closer to the shore, careful to stay hidden from sight by the rocks. It was much harder for Oikawa to remain inconspicuous because his tail was a much brighter color than Matsukawa’s. Oikawa’s tail was a bright blue, with scales that actually reflected sunlight. Matsukawa’s tail was a navy blue that looked more like a shadow in the water. The rocks stopped about 30 meters from the port where all of the ships were. Oikawa and Matsukawa hid behind the last big one and peered around the side of it.

“Mattsun, I wanna go closer. I can still barely see anything from here.” Oikawa complained, tail swishing restlessly in the water.

“Maybe if you didn’t spend all of your freetime above water your eyesight would be better. I can see just fine from here.”

“Maybe if you spent less time under the water you’d be less salty.”

“All that time above water, though, and you’re still salty.”

“Ouch Mattsun.” Oikawa said, acting hurt. “That one...” Oikawa trailed off, then whispered, “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Matsukawa asked nervously, sinking lower in the water.

“I thought I heard people talking. We should get out of here. I think someone’s coming.” Oikawa whispered, also going lower in the water. Matsukawa nodded and they both quietly slipped under the water as deep as they could go and still swim normally. “Suga is going to be so mad when we get back if he finds out that we were almost seen.”

“Well then we better make sure he doesn’t find out. Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait, Mattsun-” Oikawa starts.

“Don’t tell me you want to stay here and possibly get caught?” Matsukawa asks incredulously.

“No, no that’s not it at all. It’s just, we can’t necessarily get through these rocks very fast, especially in this shallower water and if there’s anyone up there, they would definitely notice the shine from my tail.”

“Well what do we do then?” Matsukawa asked anxiously. He glanced up at the surface of the water. So far, there was no sign of the boats the land dwellers used, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

“You should go back. Maybe Suga or Yahaba or someone will be able to think of something. I’ll go back if it’s safe and I for sure won’t be seen before then.” Oikawa suggested.

Matsukawa hesitated before reluctantly agreeing and swimming off as fast as he could to find someone that could help. Oikawa hid in the shadow of the rock while he tried to think of a way out. He needed to think of something soon because he and Matsukawa came there during high tide and it would be nearly impossible to swim out during low tide because of the rock wall that would block his path back. (Unless he wanted to go out into open water, but that was absolutely not an option. That would make attempting to hide useless.) For now all he could do was press up against the rock under the small ridge and hope he wouldn’t be noticed. His heart sank when he saw two new shadows on the water.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back by apparent popular demand: me. With a second chapter and still no promises of any updating schedule. Although I can promise at least like 3 chapters after this.
> 
> my haikyuu tumblr is theprettysettersclub.tumblr.com  
> my main blog is nightshade002.tumblr.com

All Iwaizumi really wanted to do in the few days he had left on Seijou was relax. Alone. He definitely didn’t want to be in a tiny rowboat. Not when he would be spending at least six months on a much larger ship. To make matters worse, Hanamaki had somehow convinced him to row out to Ghost Rock. The biggest rock in what everyone believed to be the most haunted area around the island because of the number of shipwrecks that occurred there. Hanamaki, who was currently sitting across from him in the small rowboat, doing nothing.

“Let’s row out to Ghost Rock, you said. It’ll be fun, you said. I’ll even help row for part of the time, you said,” Iwaizumi grumbled.

“Think of it as making sure you’re still in shape before you finally get a job.” Hanamaki said. “And besides, I’ll row us back.”

“If you don’t I swear I’m going to push you out and make you swim all the way back.”

“Fine, fine. I promise I’ll row us back.” Hanamaki said with a smile.

Iwaizumi grumbled a few swear words, but kept rowing. After all, he didn’t get this far to give up now.

Hanamaki laughed, “You’ll fit right in with all of the other sailors!”

“Shut up.” Iwaizumi said with a smile. He was going to miss this when he finally did leave. “Why don’t you try rowing for the last little bit. Unless, of course, you aren’t strong enough,” he teased.

Hanamaki glared at him, taking the bait easily. “Fine. Let’s switch. I’ll get there twice as quick as you could.”

With a lot of careful maneuvering and a few times almost capsizing, they switched positions and Hanamaki started rowing. “You can only get there twice as fast as I can because you haven’t been rowing for the better part of an hour,” Iwaizumi pointed out. Hanamaki flipped him off. “Anyway, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Don’t tell me you’re scared, Iwaizumi. Come on we get this far out and now you’re having second thoughts?” Hanamaki teased. “Don’t tell me the sailors’ superstitions are rubbing off on you, too. Kyoutani’s already more jumpy than usual. We’ve been here countless times already.”

“I promise, I’m not letting all the crazy superstitions get to me.” Iwaizumi assured him then sighed, “It’s just that something feels different about it this time. Maybe it’s because it’s the last time I’ll be able to come here for a while.”

“Nooo,” Hanamaki made a face of disgust and fell back as far as he could in the small rowboat. “Don’t tell me you’re getting all sentimental. It’s not like you’ll never come back here.”

Iwaizumi laughed. “Yeah try telling that to my mom. You’d think I was dying from listening to her talk.”

Hanamaki laughed too. “How close are we to Ghost Rock?” he asked.

Iwaizumi looked past him. “Almost there. Just a little bit more to go,” he said before jerking back with his hand over his eyes. 

“Iwaizumi?” Hanamaki asked, concern laced in his voice. He stopped and set the oars in their rests. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he assured him, taking his hand away from his eyes and blinking a bit. “There’s just something really, really shiny under the water I think. The sun must have reflected off of it and it shone right into my eyes.”

Hanamaki looked behind himself at where Iwaizumi was looking, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Whatever it was, if it had been there in the first place, was gone now. “Don’t go blind now. That would definitely delay your trip away,” he joked and continued rowing, only a short way away from Ghost Rock now. Iwaizumi dipped his hand into the water and flicked his wrist, effectively splashing Hanamaki in the face. Hanamaki retaliated by using one of the oars to soak Iwaizumi.

“Anyway,” Iwaizumi said drying his face off with the hem of his shirt, “throw the anchor down. We’re almost on top of the rock and the rope will let the boat drift over.” Hanamaki rolled his eyes, but threw the anchor out of the rowboat anyway while Iwaizumi pulled the boat over to the rock and carefully got out. Hanamaki followed when he was sure the boat wouldn’t drift too far away. They both went to the other side of the rock and sat down with the sun at their backs.

“Damn. It’s hard to believe you’re going to be gone in a few days.” Hanamaki looked out across the ocean past the rocky area they were currently seated on the edge of.

“I’m coming back, you know.”

“Not for at least six months! Do you know how many things could go wrong in six plus months at sea?”

“Yes, Makki. I know. I’ve had you and my mom and Kindaichi and Asahi and-,” Iwaizumi started counting on his fingers.

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

“All telling me every single possible thing that could go wrong in six months. I’m actually surprised that you haven’t managed to get every single person not going to try and come up with new scenarios.” 

“So we’re worried. Sue us.” Hanamaki grumbled while Iwaizumi laughed. The two sat in silence for a while, just looking out over the ocean. “Hey you remember how you were like almost blinded by something earlier?”

“Yeah, why?” Iwaizumi nodded.

“Well the tide’s starting to go out. It wouldn’t be too hard to try and find it if it doesn’t get washed away from the tide before then. The water won’t be so deep that we couldn’t try to dive for it.” Hanamaki suggested. “Who knows, maybe it’s worth something.”

Iwaizumi looked up at the sky to see how much of the day was left before shrugging, “I guess, sure. As long as you’re willing to explain to my mom why I’m coming back from a trip to ‘your house’ soaking wet.”

“Your mom loves me. It won’t be a problem.” Hanamaki said dismissively while he took his shirt off and set it on the rock so he would at least have a dry shirt afterwards. Iwaizumi rolled his eyes while taking off his own shirt. “And anyway,” Hanamaki continued as he took off his shoes, “when have I ever not been able to talk my way out of something.”

“You wouldn’t have to talk your way out of so many things if you actually did what you were told for literally once in your life.”

“I do what I’m told some-” Hanamaki stopped in the middle of responding when he saw a bright flash, only lasting for a second. He smiled mischievously at Iwaizumi, “Looks like whatever was down there still is.” He walked to the very edge of the rock before looking back at Iwaizumi. “Let’s go,” he said before jumping in.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I didn't expect this to be read by very many people so thanks to everyone who's reading it!  
> also i'd just like to apologize in advance for possible suffering because i'm fairly certain like half of the characters will end up suffering... a lot
> 
> find me on tumblr at theprettysettersclub.tumblr.com or nightshade002.tumblr.com

This was bad. This was very bad. The two land dwellers hadn’t left yet and Matsukawa hadn’t returned yet. What was worse was that of all the rocks to choose from, they had to choose this one to sit on. Worse yet was that they were sitting right above where Oikawa was hiding. And as the sun climbed higher in the sky, the shadowed area he was hiding in grew smaller and smaller. 

“I swear if I get out of this without being seen I will absolutely never, ever swim this close to the land dwellers again,” he muttered to himself.

Oikawa continued to watch the two shadows from on top of the rock and he couldn’t help but be curious about what they were talking about. Did they even speak the same language as him? After a while, the two land dwellers got up and started moving around. Oikawa made the mistake of relaxing a little. Since the sun was close to being directly above him, he accidentally let just the tip of his tail slip into the sunlight. He quickly pulled back into the shadow, but if either of the land dwellers had seen the sun glinting off of it, there would be no chance for him to escape unseen. He carefully watched the shadows as they abruptly stopped moving. When one of them looked like it was getting closer to the edge, he pressed himself back as far as he could. In truth, if either of the land dwellers looked straight down, they would definitely see him, but so far it didn’t seem like either of them had. And that’s when everything went to shit. There was a splash followed quickly by a sudden explosion of bubbles in front of him. Looking closely through the bubbles, he could make out the shape of one of the land dwellers and he had to make a split second decision. With a quick flick of his tail, he swam around the rock he was hiding against and thankfully saw a small boat he could hide under. Under the boat he had no way of knowing what the land dwellers were doing, so he surfaced on the far side of the boat, just enough so he could hear things out of the water.

“Hey!” Oikawa heard an indignant voice call out.

“If you didn’t want to get splashed, you should have jumped in sooner,” a second voice laughed back.

Idly, Oikawa realized that somehow they spoke the same language and he could understand them. He heard a second splash and assumed the other land dweller had also jumped into the water.

“You just had to jump in possibly the splashiest way possible, didn’t you?” the second voice muttered.

“Consider it payback. I’m pretty sure you even got my shirt wet when you jumped in,” the first voice responded.

“Anyway, let’s start looking for that shiny thing we saw,” the second voice said. Oikawa paled. That could literally only mean one thing. They saw him. It didn’t sound like they knew what he was or that he was actually there listening in, but they had to have seen him.

“I actually think I saw something over this way while you were busy splashing everything.” No. No no no. This literally could not be happening. There is no way Oikawa has that shitty of luck. Oikawa glanced around nervously. The only way to get away now was swimming through open water and that definitely wasn’t something he could do. There would be no possible way to remain unseen that way. Apparently he spent too long trying to think of a way to get away because he heard the first voice, much closer, say, “Holy shit. Makki, tell me you see this, too.”

“If you’re referring to the tail attached to a human torso, then I think so. Unless we’re both hallucinating.”

Oikawa, without many other choices, rose out of the water just enough to see over the edge of the boat he was hiding under. In the back of his mind, he thought, I’m probably the only mermaid living that’s been this close to a land dweller. He stared at the land dwellers, who stared back at him. One of them had dark hair and green eyes and the other had pinkish hair.

“Do you think it’s a siren?” the one with pink hair asked. He must be Makki, because that’s what the first voice had called him.

“I am not a siren.” Oikawa snapped at him without thinking.

“Wait, you can understand us?” Makki asked incredulously.

Oikawa stayed silent this time, not willing to get in further trouble by talking to the land dwellers. Well, not more than he’s said already.

“If you’re not a siren, what are you?” Oikawa still stayed silent. It appeared to frustrate Makki. “I know you can talk. You literally just did.”

“Maybe he’s shy?” the other one suggested. Oikawa let out an amused huff before he could stop himself. “Not shy then I take it.”

“Then why not talk? At least to tell us what he is.” Makki said, lifting himself out of the water and back onto the rock.

“How should I know?” the other one responded.

These two didn’t really seem like the land dwellers that Suga had told Oikawa about. They didn’t seem like they would try to harm him in any way, they just seemed curious. Like him. “What are you?” he asked against his better judgement.

“You mean you don’t know what humans are?” Makki asked. Oikawa shook his head. “Well Iwaizumi and I are humans,” he said, gesturing to the one still in the water.

“Well you don’t know what mermaids are, so I think we’re even. Also I know what you are, I just didn’t have a word for it,” Oikawa responded, completely forgetting that he hadn’t intended to tell either of them about himself.

“So you’re a mermaid. I thought mermaids were supposed to be beautiful girls?” Makki says questioningly.

“And I thought humans or whatever you are were supposed to be cruel and dangerous, but it would seem we were both wrong.”

“Cruel and dangerous? What’s that supposed to mean?” Iwaizumi asked.

“What do you think it means, I- Iwa- Iw-,” Oikawa stumbled over Iwaizumi’s name before settling on, “Iwa-chan?” Iwaizumi looked like he was going to protest before Oikawa continued. “We’re always told stories about mermaids getting caught by the land dwellers, who take their scales and sometimes-” Oikawa stopped there before actually revealing something important to these two. He had to stop his hand from reaching up and grabbing at the necklace he wore, which had a pendant that was the same color as his tail and the source of his magic. Iwaizumi and Makki looked stunned by his words. Unless they were really great actors, they had no idea about that happening. “And for the record, taking scales from a mermaid basically kills them,” Oikawa finished. He left out the part involving his pendant and magic. From what he had heard, the hunters, as Daichi had called them, forced captured mermaids to turn their tail into legs and then took their pendants. Without the magic from the pendant, mermaids couldn’t turn back and usually hunters forced them to work for them.

“Who tells those stories?” Iwaizumi asked.

Oikawa narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out if there was any ulterior motive behind the question. “The older mermaids. The ones that knew mermaids who have gone missing. Before we weren’t allowed close to shore.” Oikawa replied after a moment.

“How do you know what happened if they went missing?” Makki wondered.

“It doesn’t happen very often, but we’ve seen them again. It’s really rare that we ever actually see someone that’s gone missing again, but it’s happened,” Oikawa answered. “The things they say happened are... unpleasant... to say the least.”

“What do they say happened?” Oikawa decided to stay silent at this question. Honestly, the only time he had had the chance to hear a first person account, he and Mattsun shouldn’t have even heard it. They listened in after they were specifically told to stay away. From what they had heard, it sounded like literal torture. As much as he tried to put it out of his mind, Oikawa still remembered every detail of the story. “Okay, so that’s an off limits topic. Good to know,” Makki muttered after a while of Oikawa not talking. “Is there anything that isn’t off limits to ask about?”

Oikawa didn’t respond for a few moments, staring at Iwaizumi with his head tilted curiously. “What is with your hair?” Oikawa finally asked. Hanamaki fell back on the rock laughing. Iwaizumi’s hair was sticking up all over the place while it should have been weighed down at least a little by the water.

“What do you mean, what’s with my hair?” Iwaizumi asked.

Oikawa dipped under the boat and, against every single reasonable thought telling him not to do this, swam up right in front of where Iwaizumi was treading water. “It- it doesn’t...” Oikawa trailed off, reaching for Iwaizumi’s hair to try and fix it. “It disobeys the laws of physics, Iwa-chan.”

“Don’t call me that,” Iwaizumi grumbled, “You know my name.”

“Technically neither of you properly introduced yourselves,” Oikawa said while still attempting to get Iwaizumi’s hair to look somewhat normal.

“I’m Hanamaki Takahiro and he’s Iwaizumi Hajime. Do we get to know your name?” Hanamaki replied from his place on top of the rock.

“Oikawa Tooru,” he introduced himself. “But seriously, Iwa-chan, what is up with your hair?”

“Don’t call me Iwa-chan.” Iwaizumi snapped at Oikawa.

“Hajime-chan.”

“Iwaizumi.”

“It’s Iwa-chan or Hajime-chan. You choose.”

Iwaizumi sighed. Oikawa smiled victoriously. “And with that Iwa-chan, Makki-chan,” he said nodding to each of them, “I take my leave.” He quickly dove as far down as he could and still be able to swim properly. Then, with barely a look back, he sped off through the rocks, as fast as he could go around the twists and turns. While he was talking to the two humans, the tide had come back in and there should be just enough room for him to swim over the rock wall that would have blocked his way before. He found Matsukawa waiting for him on the other side.

“Oikawa, what took you so long?” Matsukawa asked as soon as he saw him.

“Mattsun, you are never going to believe this.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is relatively short and a lot later than I thought it would be. I bought Fire Emblem Fates like a week ago and that and school have taken up like all of my time because obviously the best time to start projects and assign a ton of homework is right before the end of school

After Oikawa left, Iwaizumi swam back to Ghost Rock and climbed back onto it. He and Hanamaki sat in silence for a while. Iwaizumi finally broke the silence by asking, “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“I don’t know, you tell me, Iwa-chan,” Hanamaki teased. “You’re the one that he had his hands all over.”

“Do. Not. Call. Me. That.” Iwaizumi said threateningly.

“Aw but the cute mermaid can?” Hanamaki said with a fake pout on his face.

Iwaizumi stood up and grabbed his shirt from the rock. “No, the cute mermaid can’t. He just did anyway and then swam away before I could do anything about it. Unless you want to do the same thing, you won’t call me ‘Iwa-chan’ ever.” Iwaizumi got in the rowboat and started bringing the anchor up.

“Wh- hey! You can’t just leave me here!” Hanamaki protested, quickly grabbing his shirt and shoes and getting in the boat before Iwaizumi could start rowing away.

“You're right. I can't. You said you'd row us all the way back,” Iwaizumi said sitting back.

Hanamaki glared at him, “I never agreed to all the way.” Iwaizumi glared back. “But fine. I’ll row us all the way back. So long as we come here again tomorrow.”

“Remember this morning when I said I just wanted to relax?” Iwaizumi asked. Hanamaki nodded. “What part of that did you not understand?”

“So you’re saying you don’t want to see the cute mermaid again?” Hanamaki ignored most of what Iwaizumi said.

“One: Oikawa is not that cute. Two: who’s to say he’ll even be there tomorrow? Three: I am not willing to row out there again tomorrow,” Iwaizumi argued.

“But have you considered: you literally called him the cute mermaid five minutes ago and don’t think for one second I didn’t see you blush when he had his hands in your hair, who’s to say he won’t be there tomorrow, in fact I’d be willing to bet on it, and I will row us both ways tomorrow,” Hanamaki countered.

Iwaizumi sighed, but didn’t protest further. Hanamaki smiled victoriously. They sat in relative silence with the only sound being small splashes from the oars. “I did not blush when his hands were in my hair!” Iwaizumi growled.

Hanamaki laughed. “Whatever you say, Iwa-chan.”

“I am not afraid to throw you out of this boat right now and refuse to come with you tomorrow,” Iwaizumi threatened.

“Alright, alright. I get it. Only the cute mermaid can call you Iwa-chan.” Hanamaki laughed harder. Eventually he calmed down enough to continue rowing. He had stopped because he was out of breath. 

“No he can’t.” Iwaizumi quickly replied. “... And he wasn’t cute.” 

Hanamaki gave him a look that asked if he even believed himself. Iwaizumi pointedly ignored it. It took considerably longer to row back than it did to row to Ghost Rock because Hanamaki couldn’t row as fast as Iwaizumi. It was early afternoon when they finally got back to the pier by Hanamaki’s house. They tied the boat to one of the pillars and walked up the short hill to the house. 

“Shit, Makki, I have to get home” Iwaizumi said once he realized how long they stayed out there. “I promised my mom that I would be back by noon.”

“Alright, alright. Go, but just know that I will be at your house bright and early tomorrow to make sure you come with me to meet Oikawa again.”


	5. Chapter 5

“You were right. I don’t believe you.” Matsukawa said after Oikawa told him everything that happened. They were currently swimming back to their village. “There’s no way that one of them had pink hair.”

“Mattsun, didn’t you hear anything else I said?” Oikawa whined.

Matsukawa stopped swimming and turned around to look at Oikawa. “I heard that you did the one single thing that you could get in legitimate trouble for. And currently I’m choosing to forget all of it, which is what you should do too.”

“But Mattsun-”

“At least until after we’ve talked to Suga about how you went a little closer than usual and got turned around and how when I went to find you, I got lost too. It took us both a while to find our way back. Which is why we’re coming back so late.”

Oikawa gaped at Matsukawa in shock. “Mattsun you’re the best!” he yelled and hugged Matsukawa. “I can’t believe you didn’t go to Suga like I told you to though.”

Matsukawa struggled his way out of Oikawa’s hold. “Well I figured I’d give you a chance to get out of there by yourself. And I needed time to come up with a perfect cover story that not even Suga could find fault in.”

“You give yourself too much credit, Mattsun. Suga can find fault in anything.”

“Oikawa! Matsukawa! Where the hell have you two been?”

“Speak of the devil,” Oikawa muttered. He and Matsukawa swam to meet Suga.

“We haven’t been gone that long,” Matsukawa grumbled.

“You’ve been gone almost all day! I thought something had happened to you two,” Suga exclaimed, leading them the short distance that was left back to their village. He glared at Oikawa, “Well, Oikawa has been gone almost all day.”

Oikawa looked away. “So I maybe went a little teeny bit closer than usual and got a little turned around.”

Suga glared at him and punched him hard on the arm. “You know the rules are there for a reason. You’re gonna be seen one day and I’m not gonna feel bad for you at all.” Oikawa guiltily averted his gaze, but Suga didn’t notice, continuing, “Not even if you’re caught because it’s gonna be your own damn fault.”

Oikawa pouted and rubbed his arm. “Oh come on Suga, that’s a little harsh. You’ll at least be worried.”

“I won’t feel bad. Honestly it’s hard being in charge of a village, even if it’s a small one, without you swimming off to apparently only Matsukawa knows where.” 

“I know, I know. I promise it won’t happen again,” Oikawa assured him. They had finally made it to the edge of the village. It was very carefully disguised so that the land dwellers - humans, Oikawa’s mind corrected him - wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. It wasn’t completely necessary, since the village was deep enough in the water that humans could probably barely see anything from above the water. The disguise was, in Oikawa’s opinion, a paranoid preventative measure, like most of the rules of the village were.

“Yeah, and how many times have I heard those words before?” Suga asked sarcastically.

“By my count, that would be the 17th time this week,” Matsukawa added.

“Mattsun! Don’t keep track of that,” Oikawa whined.

“It’s not my fault I got curious about how many times you say the exact words ‘I promise it won’t happen again’” Matsukawa imitated Oikawa.

“I do not sound like that!”

Suga laughed, “You kind of do. But seriously, 17 times?”

“Yeah. His record in one day is 6 times. To be fair, he hasn’t yet done three of the things he said he wouldn’t.” Matsukawa answered.

“You two are so mean!” Oikawa pouted.

“Maybe I, for one, wouldn’t have to be so mean if you listened to what I said for once. Or, better yet, followed the rules.” Suga countered. “Anyway, now that I know you two are back safe and sound, I have other things to do.” He swam away towards the center of the village.

Oikawa let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding as soon as Suga was out of sight. “I can’t believe he actually bought it.”

“Of course he bought it. I told you not even he would be able to find fault in my excuse.” Matsukawa said smugly. “But anyway, I believe you have a story to retell now.”

As Oikawa told Matsukawa his story again, they swam to Oikawa’s house, finally reaching it and going inside.

“It’s not really any more believable the second time,” Matsukawa finally spoke after not saying anything to interrupt Oikawa.

“I’m serious, Mattsun. I talked to them and apparently we speak the same language.” Oikawa insisted.

“Right, well, one thing’s for sure,” Matsukawa started. “You are definitely not going back there,” he finished at the same time as Oikawa said, “I’m going back tomorrow.”

“Oikawa, no. I’m all for bending and sometimes breaking the rules, but that’s too far.”

“But Mattsun-” Oikawa tried.

“No. I will tie you down.”

Oikawa swam up into his face. Eyes shining in excitement, he tried again, “But what if-”

Matsukawa looked away and squeezed his eyes closed. “No. Don’t even try that face.”

“Okay, but like your main issue was me going alone and getting caught, right?” Oikawa asked, trying to get Matsukawa to look at him.

“... yeah, why?” he reluctantly opened one eye.

“Well then you come with. It will solve everything,” Oikawa suggested, eyes still shining with hope.

Matsukawa tried, he really did, to say no. But with Oikawa looking at him with those pleading eyes, he felt his resolve weakening. “... We aren’t waiting for them long if they aren’t there. And we aren’t staying long anyway.”

Oikawa tackle-hugged him. “Thank you Mattsun! I knew you’d say yes!”

“And if Suga finds out, you take full responsibility.”

“Too late to add that condition, we already agreed. If I go down, I’m taking you with me.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has read this and left kudos or commented! It really brightens my day when I see them. Hopefully now that my school year is over I'll have more time to keep writing this
> 
> edit: there was a part that for some reason repeated itself so i fixed that

The sun was barely rising when Hanamaki got to Iwaizumi’s house. He let himself in quietly and tiptoed past Iwaizumi’s mom’s room, avoided stepping on his dog, Takara, who was sleeping right in front of Iwaizumi’s door, and slipped into Iwaizumi’s room. Struggling to not laugh at Iwaizumi’s snoring (Iwaizumi would deny that he ever snored) he balanced a small bowl of freezing cold water on Iwaizumi’s open palm. Then he pulled a feather out of his pocket that he had picked up on his way from his house and lightly tickled Iwaizumi’s face.

His hand flew up towards his face, taking the bowl with it. Hanamaki was honestly impressed that the bowl actually stayed on Iwaizumi’s hand up until it hit him, water splashing out and soaking Iwaizumi. He sat up coughing.

“Hanamaki, what the hell?” he glared at Hanamaki while he wiped the water off his face.

Hanamaki, who had up until this point stayed silent, finally started cackling. He fell on the floor holding his now aching stomach, laughing the entire time. Takara raised her head in curiosity and plodded over to sniff at Hanamaki.

“In my defense, you and I both know that there would have been no other way to get you up and moving for at least another hour and a half and I did say I’d be here bright and early,” Hanamaki sat up and started petting Takara.

“The sun isn’t even up yet. It’s not bright, just early,” Iwaizumi complained. He flopped back onto his bed facing away from Hanamaki and tried to go back to sleep. Thanks to Hanamaki, though, his pillow was soaking wet and uncomfortable. He rolled back over. “I hate you so much right now.”

Hanamaki grinned. “Rise and shine, Iwaizumi.”

Iwaizumi glared at Takara, who was thoroughly enjoying getting a tummy rub from Hanamaki. “You were supposed to keep people out of my room. Or at least wake me up before they can do something stupid.”

“Excuse you, that was actually a very thought out plan.”

“You thought it up on the way here, didn’t you?” Iwaizumi deadpanned.

“Of course I did.” Hanamaki stood up. “So are we going or not? Because I remember a specific someone saying a while ago that their mother didn’t approve of us going to Ghost Rock and that we always needed to leave before she found out.”

“Fine,” Iwaizumi huffed. “Now get out of my room so I can get dressed.”

“Alright, fine, but hurry up.” Hanamaki left Iwaizumi’s room and closed the door after Takara followed him. 

Not more than five minutes later, Iwaizumi came back out of his room fully dressed and looking slightly more awake than before. “Are you happy now?”

“Very. While you were getting dressed, I took the liberty of raiding your pantry.” Hanamaki held up a bag that he had filled with various foods and some fresh water. “Just in case we’re out there for a while. Also you get more grumpy than usual when you’re hungry.”

“I think you’re confusing the two of us.” Iwaizumi said, leading the way out of his house. “I’m not the one who can’t function normally without a cream puff.”

Hanamaki crossed his arms and rolled his eyes while they crept past Iwaizumi’s mom’s room. Once they were finally out of the small house he said, “I can function just fine without my daily cream puff. And it's not even daily.”

“Yes it is and I'm the one that has to deal with you when you go without and I say you can't function.”

“We should bring Takara with,” Hanamaki suggested. 

“Absolutely not.” Iwaizumi shot his idea down. “She is not good in boats and you know it.”

“Fine, be that way,” Hanamaki pouted. 

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes and continued on towards Hanamaki’s house. “Why couldn't you have raided your own house for food?” He grumbled. 

“Because you're the one that wanted to see the pretty mermaid again,” Hanamaki spoke as if he was explaining something to a little kid. 

Iwaizumi squinted as Hanamaki skipped ahead. “I seem to remember differently.”

“That's because you're not remembering the right things,” Hanamaki called from further down the path. “Now hurry up. Last one there has to row us there!” He yelled and took off running. Iwaizumi swore and raced after him. 

“It's not fair if you get a head start!” He yelled. 

In the end, Iwaizumi pulled just slightly ahead and won their race. It was especially impressive considering he was still half asleep. 

“What was that you were saying about fairness?” Hanamaki asked once he could breathe normally again. 

“I was gonna make you row anyway because you promised you would yesterday.”

Hanamaki groaned. He was hoping Iwaizumi had forgotten about that. “Fine. I’ll row us there.” Iwaizumi smiled smugly. The trip to Ghost Rock was fairly uneventful. The sun was just coming up, filling the sky with a pretty arrangement of colors that was reflected on the water. The only people awake other than them were fishermen getting ready to leave the port. Overall, it was a very peaceful setting.

By the time they finally reached the rock, the sun had risen so it was just above the water, still reflecting bright oranges onto the water, the fishermen had left to whichever spots they thought would have the most fish that day, and the rest of their village was stirring. 

“What are we gonna do if Oikawa doesn’t show up?” Iwaizumi asked.

“He’ll show up. I’d be willing to bet on it. There’s no way he isn’t curious about humans. You heard him say he wasn’t allowed close to shore and I feel like this would definitely be considered close to shore. Either he’s being purely rebellious or he’s curious,” Hanamaki reasoned and after a moment of consideration added, “Or both.”

They hadn’t been waiting for a half hour before Iwaizumi started getting restless. He was used to moving around all day, so he wasn’t sure what to do when he had time to just sit. Luckily, they didn’t have to wait much longer before they could see a glint in the water. “Told you so,” Hanamaki teased. Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. A few minutes later, they could see Oikawa’s head pop up out of the water in front of them, along with someone else.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long I'm so sorry. I had to write some of this chapter in a notebook in code because I was camping with my family for a week and my mom is making me get a job, so I haven't really had much time to sit down on my computer and write. This is the second longest chapter so far (Chapter 3 is the longest), so I think that probably makes up for it. Anyway, as always thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

After Oikawa worrying the entire way there, and no, that wasn’t an exaggeration, Matsukawa couldn’t believe how smug he was acting that they were actually there.The entire time it was “Mattsun, what if they don’t show up?” “Maybe we should go back.” Matsukawa, against his better judgement, had kept swimming. It was against his better judgement for two reasons. One: he was deliberately going to actually talk to land dwellers, humans as Oikawa had called them. And two: he was ignoring Oikawa. He knew he would regret doing that much more than breaking any rule set by Suga. The last time... well... Matsukawa didn’t like to think about it. So when Oikawa had the audacity to say, “I told you so,” Matsukawa didn’t even feel bad punching him in front of Oikawa’s ‘new friends.’

“Mattsun, what was that for!” Oikawa whined, rubbing his shoulder and glaring at Matsukawa.

“I didn’t do anything you didn’t deserve.” He retorted. The indignant expression Oikawa was giving him was completely uncalled for. His pout was also uncalled for.

“Anyway,” Oikawa sighed dramatically, “Mattsun, this is Iwa-chan and Makki-chan. Iwa-chan, Makki-chan, this is my friend Mattsun.”

“I already told you, my name is Iwaizumi,” the definitely more buff one, apparently Iwaizumi, growled.

“Just go with it. There’s no way you’re gonna get him to call you Iwaizumi now that he’s got a nickname for you. I mean, no one’s called me Matsukawa for like three maybe four hundred years.”

“Wait... You mean you two are hundreds of years old?” Makki asked incredulously. Iwaizumi looked still slightly pissed, but mostly just shocked.

Matsukawa glanced at Oikawa who looked as confused as he felt. “Well how old are you two then?” Oikawa asked, tilting his head.

“I’m about eighteen years old and Makki is seventeen.” Iwaizumi replied slowly. “How old are you?”

“I’m like 735 I think. Mattsun’s like 738 i think.” Oikawa answered.

“Holy shit. Are mermaids like immortal or something?” Makki exclaimed loudly. Matsukawa immediately noticed one: holy shit, Oikawa was right. He did have pink hair. And two: Oikawa had gone uncharacteristically quiet. Matsukawa decided to follow his example and stayed silent also.

Makki groaned and fell back against the rock. “So that’s an off limits topic I assume?” he asked when he sat back up. Oikawa nodded stiffly, eyes just barely narrowed. Matsukawa was actually impressed that Oikawa was being so mature and, dare he say, responsible. “What’s something we can talk about, because it seems like there’s nothing you’re willing to say?”

Oikawa thought for a moment. “Why doesn’t your boat have the cool shapes on the sides like the big ones do?”

Iwaizumi and Makki looked at each other in confusion. “What shapes?”

Oikawa swam over to their small boat. “They’re like swirly lines,” he explained, using his finger to imitate the lines and gesturing to where he was talking about, “and they’re usually near the front, way up at the top.”

Makki looked confused for a few more moments before it looked like he figured out what Oikawa was thinking of. “You mean the letters for the name of the ship. Ours doesn't have a name painted on because it doesn't have a name, since it's so small and kinda unimportant.”

“Wait, do you mean that mermaids can't read?” Iwaizumi asked. He seemed almost personally offended by that. 

“No? Well I think that the higher ranking mermaids can, but Mattsun and I can't,” Oikawa answered. Iwaizumi’s expression, remarkably, looked even worse at that. 

“You can't read?” Iwaizumi asked incredulously. His eyes were almost comically wide. 

“Calm down, dude. Just because you have read just about every book in our library doesn't mean that everyone has,” Makki sighed. Matsukawa didn't really understand the problem. Every time Suga got a letter from Kiyoko or one of the other village leaders, it always put him in a bad mood. And anyway, it wasn’t like there was much to read. It took a substantial amount of work and magic to write letters from what Matsukawa understood. It was just easier to have a Speaker send messages. Speakers usually preferred octopi, but all fish delivered the messages just fine. Octopi were apparently much better conversationalists.

“What’s so great about reading?” Oikawa asked. 

Iwaizumi stared at him, mouth and eyes wide open. “I think you broke him,” Matsukawa commented after he didn’t move when Makki waved his hand in front of his face.

“Th-there’s books about all kinds of things. Like knights from far away kingdoms, demon kings, mages, archers, heroes, and quests. Or dragons and witches and magic. There’s even a book about this rock that I’ve read.” As Iwaizumi listed off things he’d read about, Matsukawa saw Oikawa’s eyes practically shine. 

“Why would you read a book about a rock?” Matsukawa asked.

Makki groaned. “Nooo. You got him started.”

Iwaizumi didn’t even have to look to punch him in the shoulder. Matsukawa was slightly impressed. “There’s a bunch of ghost stories about this reef, but more specifically this rock. Apparently people have seen almost transparent figures one second and they were gone the next. It usually only happens on new moons.” Matsukawa bit his lip and looked at Oikawa. He seemed to be realizing the same thing. Oikawa made a ‘go on’ gesture, probably not trusting himself to speak right now. Makki looked a little suspicious, but didn’t say anything. “It’s been happening for centuries. The earliest account of someone seeing something out here was about three hundred years ago,” Iwaizumi continued. 

That confirmed it. Matsukawa put his hand over his mouth to try and hide his smile. Oikawa couldn’t keep his shoulders from shaking with laughter. Neither lasted more than a minute before they were full on laughing. Iwaizumi and Makki stared at them like they were crazy. Matsukawa wasn’t in any position to deny those claims.

“What’s so funny?” Iwaizumi asked irritatedly. The small smile on Makki’s face not going unnoticed by Matsukawa. He’d been told his laugh was contagious.

Oikawa was still laughing too hard to answer, just laughing and shaking his head. “That was us,” Matsukawa supplied, a bit short on breath from laughing so hard.

“You know, Mattsun, I was thinking this rock seemed a bit familiar,” Oikawa said after he finally calmed down.

“I can’t believe there’s a book written about us. We’re famous.”

“I’m already famous, Mattsun.”

“Being popular with everyone from Kiyoko’s village except for Kiyoko and Yachi does not count.”

“Yes it does!” Oikawa pouted.

“So sorry to interrupt your little lover’s spat,” Makki started. It definitely got Oikawa’s and Matsukawa’s attention. They barely needed to glance at each other before they both simultaneously dove under the water and flicked their tails, drenching Makki. It missed Iwaizumi completely, thanks to Oikawa. He was spitting water out of his mouth and wiping it off of his face and Iwaizumi was laughing when they both surfaced again. “But how was that you?”

Matsukawa’s eyes widened and he looked to Oikawa panicked. Oikawa stared back at him, looking like a shrimp caught in an angler fish’s light. This was possibly the worst thing that could have happened because if they answered the question, they would be handing these two humans the reason mermaids were hunted on a silver platter. Matsukawa left it up to Oikawa to determine how much he trusted these two by making him answer and sinking down in the water so his mouth was under.

Oikawa hesitated for a moment before answering simply, “Magic.”

“No way,” Iwaizumi said skeptically.

“Yes way,” Oikawa whined. He hated being told he was wrong or lying, especially when he wasn’t, so Matsukawa sighed as he realized that they would probably be on house arrest if anyone ever found out what was bound to happen. “I’m a Manipulator and Mattsun’s an Illusionist.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that I can manipulate the water and Mattsun can create illusions,” Oikawa explained irritatedly. 

“Can you prove it?” Iwaizumi challenged. Matsukawa held his breath as he sat in silent dread. Who knew how Oikawa would answer now that he was riled up.

Oikawa glared at Iwaizumi. “... no, well, I can, but I’m not going to,” he answered slowly. Matsukawa exhaled with relief. He was honestly worried Oikawa would take it too far.

“Iwaizumi, just drop it. It’s obvious that he brought it up on accident or something,” Makki sighed, clearly disappointed.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?” Iwaizumi asked.

“Well, yeah but-” Makki started, but Oikawa cut him off.

“Even if I wanted to, Mattsun and I have to leave now, so we’re not missed. We’ll be back tomorrow though.”

“Alright, bye Oikawa, bye Matsukawa,” Makki said.

Matsukawa wiped a fake tear off his face. “The sound of my own name, it’s been so long.”

Makki laughed. “By the way, my name is actually Hanamaki.”

Matsukawa smiled. Maybe he wouldn’t mind coming back again. “Well then, Hanamaki, I will see you tomorrow. Bye Iwaizumi.”

“Bye Iwa-chan, bye Makki-chan!”

“Bye-” Iwaizumi started, but Oikawa had already dove under the water, making sure to flick his tail so Iwaizumi got hit in the face like Makki did earlier. Matsukawa shook his head at his childishness before following him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally finished another chapter! Just so you guys know, I'm not sure if I'll update much until like November because I'm writing two different things for the Haikyuu Magic Fest, swim practice starts in like a week, and I still have to do a bunch of summer homework. I might get another chapter in sometime later this month, but once September starts, I'm gonna have like no free time. Anyway, thanks for reading this and I hope you like the new chapter
> 
> (btw find me on tumblr @ theprettysettersclub.tumblr.com)

Iwaizumi wiped the water off his face with his shirt. It wasn’t very effective in drying him off, but at least there wasn’t dripping water.

“I hope you know that earned you the job of rowing us back,” Hanamaki commented while he stood up. “And the first thing you have to do tomorrow is apologize.” 

“I don't really think it's fair for me to row us back when _you_ were the one that promised to row us both ways.”

“Yeah, but you were the one that made them mad. Therefore you are the one that has to row us back.”

Iwaizumi sighed, but he couldn’t really argue. He glanced up at the sky and noticed that there were a lot of storm clouds. He could have sworn the sky was completely clear earlier. “We should go now then, it looks like it’s gonna rain.”

Hanamaki looked up at the sky, too. “Yeah, shit. It looks like there’s gonna be a big storm.”

They had to pull the boat out of the water and carry it up the hill when they got back just to make sure it wasn’t swept away by the waves that were getting bigger from the wind. Once they made sure the wind wouldn’t blow it away, Iwaizumi started towards his own house. Hanamaki tried to protest and make him just stay at Hanamaki’s house, but Iwaizumi refused to listen. He sighed and followed Iwaizumi, muttering about how crazy this was and that they should get to shelter instead of walking to Iwaizumi’s house.

\--

“Oikawa, you _have_ to calm down.”

“I don’t _want_ to calm down, Mattsun,” Oikawa replied snippily. He was, to put it very simply, pissed. At himself for thinking that Iwaizumi might not really try to find anything out about mermaids. At Iwaizumi for continuing to try and make him use his magic after he clearly said no. At Matsukawa for being a voice of reason. At humans in general for everything he’s heard.

“I get that, Oikawa. Alright? I understand,” Matsukawa started. He glanced nervously at the surface of the water where he could see the waves getting rougher and rougher. “But you need to at least calm down enough to control your magic. A storm from out of nowhere is suspicious enough to hunters, let alone the one that’s gonna happen unless you get your magic under control.”

Oikawa took a deep breath, Matsukawa’s words finally sinking in. He tried to pull as much of his magic as he could back to himself and away from the storm. He could only prevent it from getting worse, so the storm would still be pretty bad, but nowhere near as devastating as it would have been had Oikawa not regained control. He took another deep breath to steady himself from the drain on his magic. Using that much without control over it was bound to leave him with at least a headache.

“Are you better?” Matsukawa asked, slowly floating closer to him. Oikawa nodded, already feeling a headache coming on and feeling a bit dizzy. Matsukawa ran his fingers through his hair. “I have absolutely no clue how we could possibly keep this from Suga now,” he said.

Oikawa groaned, pressing his face into his hands. “I’m sorry, Mattsun, this is all my fault.”

“Don’t try and take all the credit, Oikawa. After all, I did agree to come with you today and tomorrow too, apparently. Now let’s get going. You look like you’re gonna pass out any minute now.”

\--

“Hajime! Where have you been?” Iwaizumi’s mom wrapped him up in a hug before moving to Hanamaki to do the same. “And Takahiro, shouldn’t you be at home with this storm coming?”

“We would be at my house, but we wanted to make sure you were okay.” Hanamaki said. Iwaizumi nodded in agreement.

“You two should have stayed there in shelter. If you had been a few minutes later, you would have been swept away by the storm,” she ushered them in from the front entrance. “It’s going to be a hell of a storm.”

“But mom-” Iwaizumi started but his mom cut him off.

“Don’t you ‘but mom’ me.”

“Mom, we just-”

“Don’t you worry about me. I took care of myself for years before you decided it was your job,” she argued. Her point was contradicted by the way she started coughing. Iwaizumi was by her side in an instant. He helped her over to a chair so she could sit down.

“Mom, this is why we check on you. What if you had had a worse coughing fit?” Iwaizumi said after his mom caught her breath again.

She scowled. Hanamaki was reminded of where Iwaizumi got his permanently grumpy face from. “It wasn’t bad this time. I can handle myself.”

Iwaizumi sighed. “Hanamaki and I are going to be in my room if you need anything.”

\--

“Come on, Oikawa. You can make it, just a little more,” Matsukawa muttered. Despite Oikawa’s original protests that he was fine, he was just barely still awake. The magic drain must have been enormous, much bigger than Oikawa would ever be willing to let on and the effects more amplified because he wasn’t in control.

“Are we there yet, Mattsun?” Oikawa asked. He had closed his eyes a while ago to help with the headache, so Matsukawa was leading him.

“Almost,” he assured him. 

Internally, he was freaking out. There was legitimately no way for them to keep this from Suga and that would most definitely mean some sort of punishment. A magical storm plus Oikawa’s magic drain plus the fact that they had both been missing for the better part of the day as well as yesterday had to equal absolutely nothing good. It would be a miracle if they even get into town without someone stopping them.

“Mattsun! Oikawa!” Apparently there would be no divine intervention today. “Suga has been looking all over for you two!”

Oikawa groaned and covered his ears. “ ‘s too loud,” he whined quietly.

Yahaba swam up to them, arms crossed. “Where have you two been?” he scolded.

Matsukawa sighed as Oikawa wrapped his arms around him and pressed his face into his back. He always got clingy to whoever and whatever was around him when he experienced magic drain. “Would it be enough to say bad decisions were made?”

Yahaba rolled his eyes. “And you two are supposed to be more mature than me. Just find Suga and make sure he knows you’re alive. And no,” he added when Matsukawa opened his mouth, “I’m not going to do it for you.”

Matsukawa closed his mouth. “Are you sure?” Yahaba rolled his eyes again and swam away. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

“Oikawa, let go, we have to get you actually into the village.” Oikawa just groaned and held on tighter. “Do not be a child about this. Let go.”

“Don’t wanna,” Oikawa whined.

Matsukawa sighed. He was not prepared to deal with this shit today. “Oikawa. Off. Now. We have to talk to Suga.”

“Noooo Mattsuuuunn,” he whined as Matsukawa peeled his arms off himself.

“Come on, only a little bit more left to go,” he reassured him. Oikawa protested, but swam with him into the village to find Suga.

Needless to say, he wasn’t very happy when they found him. For a few minutes, Oikawa and Matsukawa just wilted under Suga’s cold glare. None of them said a word. Matsukawa honestly wasn’t sure whether he would have preferred yelling to this. He opened his mouth a few times, but closed it soon after Suga directed his gaze solely at him.

“So, Oikawa, remind me what it was you said yesterday after you disappeared,” Suga finally spoke, voice colder than ice.

Oikawa hung his head. “I promise it won’t happen again.”

“And what happened only a day later?”

Oikawa averted his eyes. “I did the same thing.”

Suga sighed and dragged his hand down his face. “Look,” he said, voice much warmer now, “I get that you’re curious, okay? But the rules are there to keep you safe. I don’t know what happened while you were gone that made you so upset you lost control, and I’m not going to ask. What’s done is done. The point is that what you did might have attracted the gaze of hunters, and that means for the time being, none of us are as safe as we were before.”

“I’m sorry, Suga,” Oikawa said in a small voice, “I just... I’m sorry.”

Suga swam over and hugged Oikawa. “I know. In the future though, since I know I can’t keep you here, please at least tell me that you’re going to be gone so I don’t have to worry. And if you lose control again, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble. Now get some rest, you’re obviously still drained.”

Matsukawa snickered when he saw Oikawa’s arms tighten around Suga. “I think he’s already found a place to rest.”

“I swear, Mattsun, if you do what I think you’re about to do,” Suga threatened.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Matsukawa said as he started swimming away. “Have fun dealing with clingy Oikawa though.”

“Mattsun! Get back here now!” Matsukawa just laughed and kept swimming. “Mattsun!”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been like 2 and a half months but I've finally got another chapter up (and i've got another planned soon because this one was getting long and I wanted to update)  
> My official busy months are over in exactly a week, so I will absolutely update more often than like a few months  
> Also thank you to everyone who has left comments or kudos because I like never shut up about them for at least a week after getting them

“Oikawa, I don’t care if you don’t feel good. We’re going. It’s your fault anyway,” Matsukawa said as he tried to drag Oikawa out of his bed. He wasn’t sure how he managed to do it but Oikawa refused to move at all.

“It’s too early,” he complained. “And my head hurts.”

“And whose fault is that?” Matsukawa asked.

“Iwa-chan’s.”

He sighed, “I know by now you can say his name so you can’t possibly be that mad if you’re still calling him a nickname. Also that was the wrong answer. The answer is it’s your fault.”

“Fine. It’s Iwaizumi’s fault.”

Matsukawa finally dropped Oikawa’s arm. “I have a question.”

Oikawa rolled over and opened one eye to look up at him.

“When did I become a babysitter?”

Oikawa wasn’t quick enough to hide his smile before he rolled over. “Not funny,” he whined.

“Wrong again. It’s very funny. It’s like you were never taught anything if you get all these questions wrong.” 

“Mattsun I will hit you.” Oikawa rolled over again. Matsukawa swam to the other side of the room.

“You’ll have to catch me first,” he taunted. “But that’s gonna be pretty hard if just a headache leaves you completely incapacitated.”

Oikawa was up in a flash and across the room in an instant. Matsukawa was prepared though and was already on his way out the door.

“Mattsun, get back here!” he yelled after him. Matsukawa only paused to turn around and laugh at him for a second before he turned around and kept going. Oikawa finally caught up to him when they were stopped by Suga.

“Going out again?” 

“Uh yeah. We were gonna find you and tell you.”

Suga sighed. “Be careful and come back safe.”

Oikawa nodded. “We are being careful.”

“Just don’t do anything stupid.” Suga paused before adding, “And know I don’t approve of this, even if I’m not stopping you.”

“We know Suga.”

“Alright, go.”

“Sweet! Bye Suga.” Oikawa and Matsukawa waved as they swam away.

\--

“That’s a lot of stuff for just one day.” Hanamaki commented, raising an eyebrow. Iwaizumi ignored him and kept adding food to his bag. Hanamaki leaned against the counter with a mischievous grin. “Don’t tell me it’s all for the pretty mermaid you pissed off, is it?”

Iwaizumi stopped for a second. Hanamaki’s grin got wider. “One, he’s not so pretty, two, his name is Oikawa, and three, this isn’t for him.”

“Mhmm so why are you bringing milk bread? You hate milk bread.”

Iwaizumi hesitated once more. “...No I don’t.”

“Yes you do. You hate sweet things.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yeah you do.”

“I like sweet things.” Iwaizumi insisted.

“Like what?” Hanamaki reveled in the way Iwaizumi struggled to come up with one sweet food he liked. “How do you even know he’ll like sweet foods?”

“I don’t know, I just have a feeling.” Iwaizumi answered distractedly without realizing he had answered Hanamaki’s previous question. 

“Right you wanna tell me again how this isn’t for him?”

“It’s not for Oikawa,” Iwaizumi said raising his voice slightly.

“Okay, okay whatever you say. Are we gonna leave anytime soon?”

Iwaizumi finally, _finally_ , stopped putting things in his bag. “Fine, let’s go.”

“Finally,” Hanamaki muttered. “You’re rowing.”

“No I’m not, you are.”

“It’s your turn.” Hanamaki whined.

“No it’s your turn. I rowed yesterday.”

“So?”

“So it’s your turn.”

Hanamaki sighed. “Fine.”

Iwaizumi raised his eyebrows. “That was surprisingly easy.”

“Let’s just say I’m in an agreeable mood today.” Hanamaki smiled.

“Why do I not trust that?” Iwaizumi asked, narrowing his eyes. He heaved a sigh. It was going to be a long day, he could already tell.

\--

“Mattsun they’re late,” Oikawa whined.

Matsukawa sighed. _Here we go again._ “We haven’t even gotten there yet.”

“Neither have they.”

“Out of the two times you’ve met them, you’ve gotten there first once.”

“But-”

“And you never set a specific time.”

“I guess but still...” Oikawa trailed off, looking away.

“I will tell every single one of your embarrassing stories if you complain about them not being here for more than the next five minutes.” Matsukawa threatened.

As soon as he said it, he regretted setting a time limit. Oikawa spent the next five minutes straight talking. Matsukawa didn’t realize it was possible to talk for that long without a breath, but Oikawa did like to do the impossible.

“And time’s up. No wonder you’ve got a headache.”

“Mattsuunnn,” Oikawa whined. “It’s not my fault I’m drained.”

“Well, it kinda is.”

“No it’s not.”

Matsukawa looked up towards the sky, “Why me? Why did I have to be stuck with the whiniest being on the entire Earth?”

Oikawa swam past him, completely ignoring him. He opened his mouth, when they finally reached the rock, probably to complain.

“Nope. Not gonna listen to it.” Matsukawa broke the surface of the water. He flopped up onto the rock and laid down. He trailed his tail in the water. Oikawa followed him up onto the rock. Instead of laying back however, he leaned up to look out over the water.

“Aren’t we supposed to be careful?”

“I am being careful. I’m being aware of my surroundings.”

Matsukawa rolled his eyes. “Yeah and anyone around you could see you.” Oikawa pouted but slunk back down farther into the water. “Why don’t you take a nap while we’re waiting. That way they won’t have to deal with your complaining.”

“I never complain,” Oikawa said with an offended expression.

“You’re right, it’s more whining.” Oikawa pouted more. “I’ll wake you up when they get here.”

“Fine.” Oikawa heaved a sigh and put his head down. “But only for a couple of minutes.”

“Of course.”

\--

“Alright I get that you’re a nerd, but do you have to bring books to meet with the mermaids that _can’t even read them_?”

“I can read to them.”

Hanamaki rifled through his bag of stuff, taking a short break from rowing, and pulled a book out. “Really? You’re gonna bring the book that basically started your argument yesterday?”

Iwaizumi’s cheeks reddened a little. “I just... thought they might want to know what it says. You’re right though, it’s probably not a good idea.”

Hanamaki put the book back and started rowing again.

“Can’t you row any faster?” Iwaizumi asked irritatedly.

Hanamaki smiled. “Eager to see them?”

“No,” Iwaizumi replied, a little too quickly. “I’m just bored.”

“Right,” he said, but picked up the pace anyway.

“And I think they beat us there, unless you know of anyone else who would be on Ghost Rock today.” Iwaizumi commented.

Hanamaki turned around to look at the rock, where two distinct figures were there. Based on the occasional shine, he assumed it was Oikawa’s tail drifting into the sun, it was Matsukawa and Oikawa. He turned back around, careful to keep a straight face. “If you wanna get out and swim so you get there faster, feel free to jump out of the boat and swim to your cute mermaid.”

“I’m prepared to throw you out of this boat at any point in time, I hope you know that.”

The corner of Hanamaki’s mouth twitched. “But then who would be your slave and row you everywhere?”

“You got me there. I guess I would just have to stop giving you cream puffs.”

“You wouldn’t,” he gasped, eyes widening almost comically.

“I would. Now get rowing.”

“Yes sir.” Hanamaki fake saluted him and rowed even faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (scream with me about seijou and haikyuu on tumblr @theprettysettersclub)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was gonna update this sooner but then I kinda got going with it and it ended up being the longest chapter so far at over 2000 words
> 
> btw the next chapter is probs gonna be matsuhana centric

Oikawa woke up to laughter. He slowly blinked open his eyes and raised his head off his arm. After rubbing his eyes a bit, when he could see clearly again, he noticed Iwaizumi and Hanamaki had finally arrived.

“Mattsun, you were supposed to wake me up,” he accused, glaring at him.

“You needed the rest and you can’t deny any of my stories if you’re asleep.”

“You said you wouldn’t tell!”

“I said no such thing. I only said I _would_ tell if you didn’t stop complaining. I never said I wouldn’t tell anyway.” Matsukawa countered.

Oikawa put his head down on his arms and pouted. He flicked his tail up lazily to wet the part out of the water. It was starting to get itchy and feel uncomfortable. Matsukawa had apparently slid back into the water sometime earlier.

“If it makes you feel any better, you woke up just in time for me to tell all of Iwaizumi’s embarrassing stories.” Hanamaki said.

“Really?” Oikawa drawled, propping his chin on one hand and glancing at Iwaizumi. “Then I guess I didn’t wake up _too_ late.”

“Of course you did because Makki _will not_ be saying _anything_.”

“Oh?” Hanamaki smirked. “And how are you planning on stopping me?”

“I could always push you in the water, or you’ve got plenty of embarrassing stories of your own that I’m sure they’d love to hear.”

Hanamaki glared at Iwaizumi. “Let’s arm wrestle. I win, I get to tell your stories, you win, you get to tell mine.”

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. “We both know I’m gonna win.”

“Impossible,” Hanamaki scoffed. “I’ve got Matsukawa on my side, don’t I?”

Matsukawa swam closer, obviously curious. “I don’t know what arm wrestling is, but whatever it is, I’m definitely on Makki’s side.”

Iwaizumi smiled, repositioning himself on the rock so that he was laying down facing Hanamaki who did the same. “You’re gonna need all the help you can get.”

Hanamaki looked at Oikawa. “Whaddya say? Team Makki?”

Oikawa pretended to contemplate for a while, thinking it over. “Nope. Team Iwa-chan.”

They grabbed each other’s hand. “Ready?” Iwaizumi asked. Hanamaki nodded determinedly. “Go.” 

Hanamaki held out for an underwhelming ten seconds before his arm was pushed down.

“I win,” Iwaizumi smiled smugly. He went back to sitting normally on the rock. Hanamaki pouted.

“Fine. But don’t you have something to do first?”

Iwaizumi looked at him blankly before Hanamaki held up his bag. “Right, uh.” Iwaizumi took the bag from him. “Yeah.”

Oikawa tilted his head. “What is it?”

“I wanted to apologize for yesterday. I shouldn’t have pushed you like that and you had every right to get mad. I’m sorry.” Iwaizumi idly played with the strap of his bag, looking slightly uncomfortable. “I, uh, brought you some food that I don’t think you’ve tried, living in the water and all.”

Oikawa’s eyes widened, cheeks slightly reddening. “You didn’t have to bring anything. I acted immaturely too.”

“So anyway, I brought a few different things because I didn’t know what you would like. Here,” Iwaizumi started pulling a few things out of his bag. “I also brought the book about this rock and the myths about it.”

“You brought a book about the thing that started our argument?”

Iwaizumi looked away a little guiltily, “I thought you might want to know what it says. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, I just thought-”

“I want to!” Oikawa cut him off. “Uh, sorry, but I didn’t mean to sound judgemental or anything, I just was a bit surprised.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I wasn’t really sure about bringing it,” Iwaizumi said awkwardly. “Do you wanna try any of the food or...?”

“Oh, right, uh...” Oikawa picked something at random because none of it looked remotely familiar to him. “What’s this called?”

“That’s milk bread. It’s kinda sweet. I don’t really like it, but you might.”

He nibbled on it a little before his eyes went wide. “I love it,” he said, trying not to eat it all at once. “Do you have any more?”

“I have a bit more with me, but I’ve got a lot at home. I can bring some more if you want it.”

“If you’re not gonna eat it,” Oikawa said. He looked around. “Where’d Makki and Mattsun go?”

Iwaizumi looked around too before shrugging. “No idea. They probably went to explore or something.”

“Yeah, probably,” Oikawa said, still scanning over the water for really any sign of either of them. “So can we look at that book now?”

Iwaizumi seemed startled and Oikawa looked back at him. His cheeks were slightly red. “Right, I’ll get it out.”

While he was occupied with finding the book, Oikawa sent out a small pulse of his magic to try and find Matsukawa. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Hanamaki, or trust him, he was just trying to be careful. Hunters did come in all shapes and sizes. He relaxed slightly when he found that they _were_ just looking around and Matsukawa was safe.

“Got it,” Iwaizumi’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. He held up what must be a book. Oikawa was slightly disappointed that the shapes weren’t as swirly as the ones on ships were. He reached for it but Iwaizumi held it out of his reach. “I don’t want to get it wet or dirty.”

“I won’t! I just wanna see it,” Oikawa whined. Now that he thought about it though, he did get kinda dirty lying on the rock for so long. And if he tried to rinse off, he risked getting it wet.

Iwaizumi sat down right next to him. “I’ll hold it so that you can see.”

“So what does it say?” Oikawa asked as soon as Iwaizumi opened it.

“It says to be patient and wait until I open the page fully and look at it,” Iwaizumi joked with a smile.

“Fine,” Oikawa huffed. “So now that you’ve had a chance to look at it, what does it say?”

“Well this part is about all of the ships that have sunk here. Some of the survivors’ stories talk about ghosts sinking their ships. But according to this, the dates for those kinds of things were before, you know, when you and Mattsun said,” Iwaizumi summed up.

“That was before we lived in this area,” Oikawa said. “There’s a lot of mean spirits around here because of the shipwrecks that have happened here.”

“Mean spirits?”

“Like, hmm...” Oikawa thought about how to explain it best, “So whenever someone dies in a shipwreck, especially this close to land, they obviously aren’t happy in their last moments. So their spirit is restless. Every being has magic in them, but humans haven’t found their _own_ way to harness their magic so there’s a lot of excess magic built up. Strong emotions tend to affect a being’s magic and throw it off balance. Humans have no way to release their magic so all the negative emotions you feel when you die create a sort of impression, like pressing your hand into mud, on the area and when you finally die, all the built up magic fills that space in with negative energy and magic.”

Iwaizumi listened quietly while Oikawa spoke. “So what do the mean spirits do?”

“Sink more ships in the hopes that it will put them at rest.”

“But wouldn’t that just make more spirits?” Oikawa nodded. “Then how do you get rid of them?”

Oikawa winked. “It’s a secret.”

Iwaizumi sighed but didn’t push it, clearly having learned from the day before. “Uh, if you don’t mind, I know it’s probably a bad subject, but why do you not like humans so much? You mentioned it the first day and I’m kinda curious, but you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want, I mean you probably don’t any-”

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa cut him off, “It’s fine.”

“You’re sure?” Iwaizumi asked, having recovered from his rambling.

Oikawa nodded. “It’s not that I hate humans. Actually it’s pretty much the opposite. Humans are fascinating. I just can’t trust anyone right away. It’s just a bit of a... personal... issue. Especially for me and Mattsun. There are people we call hunters. They, well, hunt mermaids. There’s a couple of different reasons, but usually it’s for their magic.”

“Is that why, um, yesterday happened?” Iwaizumi asked, playing with the hem of his shirt.

Oikawa nodded again. “So anyway, it’s a particularly, um, touchy subject for me because hunters took most of my family.” Oikawa took a deep breath before continuing. “I was there when it happened. They were apparently more trouble that it was worth so... I was the only one that really made it out.” Oikawa looked down at his hands. “I don’t even know how I got away. My parents, my sister, her mate, their son, all of them could have survived.” Oikawa fell silent.

Iwaizumi didn’t know what to say after hearing that. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like. His father wasn’t around, but at least he was still pretty sure that he was still alive.And his mom may be sick, but she was at least still alive. He was honestly surprised that Oikawa wasn’t crying. His voice was thick with emotion and if it were Iwaizumi, he was fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to so much as think of it without getting at least teary-eyed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the entire story.

Oikawa looked up and smiled at Iwaizumi. He hated the smile because it was so obviously fake. “Sorry, I don’t know why I told you all that. It’s been a long time since everything happened, so I’m mostly fine now.”

_Liar._ Iwaizumi thought. _There’s no way you’re ‘mostly fine’ with the way you just acted._

He didn’t say anything for a while simply because there was nothing he could say. After a few moments of a tense silence he blurted out, “Can I give you a hug?”

Instantly, he regretted it. He wasn’t really a physically affectionate person and he had no idea what he was going to do should Oikawa say no. After hearing about hunters, most of what Oikawa was saying and doing made sense to him. And if he were in Oikawa’s place, he’d never get close to someone who might hurt him.

Oikawa stayed still for a bit, not looking at Iwaizumi before shrugging in an attempt to be nonchalant. “If you want.”

Iwaizumi pulled him close, holding him tightly. “I know it probably doesn’t mean much, but I’m sorry that it happened.”

“Thank you Iwaizumi,” Oikawa said so quietly Iwaizumi doubted he would have been able to hear it if they weren’t so close.

“Uh if you want to ask anything about me, you can,” Iwaizumi said awkwardly after they pulled apart. “Or like humans in general it doesn’t have to be about me specifically.”

“What do you do usually. Like when you’re not here?” Oikawa asked after thinking for a moment.

“Normally I help out people in the town and stuff so I can buy medicine and stuff for my mom,” Iwaizumi answered.

“What’s medicine?”

“It helps sick people get better,” Iwaizumi explained. He was a little surprised that Oikawa didn’t know what medicine was but he supposed he might just have a different name for it.

“Your mom is sick?”

“Yeah, she has been for a while. I’m taking care of her for now.”

“For now?”

“I mean she’ll get better and I got a job on a ship so I won’t be able to take care of her for a while, but it’s so I can buy better medicine and maybe afford to take her to a doctor.”

“You’re going away?” Oikawa asked, feeling kinda bad that he wasn’t really taking into account everything else.

Iwaizumi nodded. “I’m gonna be gone for about six months if everything goes smoothly and we don’t get held up by storms or anything. I’ll be gone for a year at most. It’ll probably go by quickly for you since you’ve lived for so much longer than me.”

“But isn’t this your home? Why would you want to be away from it for so long?”

Iwaizumi was kind of thrown off by the question. Most people when he told them he was going to be on a ship for so long asked if he would get sick of the sea or if he really understood the dangers or if he was trying to avoid something on the island. “Well, I want to see the world and I want to be able to get my mom better things,” he said, looking up at the clear sky, no trace of the storm from yesterday. He turned to look at Oikawa and with the sun beating down on them, reflecting off of Iwaizumi’s eyes, Oikawa could swear Iwaizumi was much more than human. “Don’t you want to see more of the world?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr @theprettysettersclub if you wanna scream about haikyuu or this au or literally anything  
> (also i was totally gonna keep going after that ending but like i really liked it as an ending lmao)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone! (It's actually 4:20 where I am rn omg how fitting) as promised (i think) an all matsuhana chapter
> 
> find me on tumblr @theprettysettersclub

“Hey,” Matsukawa whispered, “Let’s go look around.”

“What you _don’t_ want to be third and fourth wheeled?”

“Just come on.” He took one of Hanamaki’s hands. “You probably want to hold your breath.”

Hanamaki nodded and took a deep breath. With a flick of his tail, Matsukawa dragged Hanamaki through the water only slightly slower than he would have been able to on his own. When they surfaced again, they were a significant distance from the other two. “You got that far that quickly?”

He nodded. “It’s not really all that fast, though.”

“Seriously?” Hanamaki asked, swimming slowly over to a rock to lean on. “It’s much faster than I’d ever be able to go.”

“Well, and this is just a guess, so correct me if I’m wrong, you could most likely go a _bit_ faster than me on land.”

He laughed, “I suppose I could.”

Matsukawa took a minute to look around where they were now. Definitely too close to land. A cliff loomed over them to his left, but it was so tall that it really shouldn’t be too much of a big deal, even if he was way too close. It wasn’t like anyone would really be able to see him from all the way up there, as long as he kept his tail under him and stayed upright. He felt a ripple in the water, most likely Oikawa noticed they were gone now.

“You think there’s any underwater caves?” Hanamaki asked, looking at the cliff.

“I could check,” Matsukawa suggested before diving under the water. He really _should not_ be doing this, but he figured that if anything were to happen, it would have happened already. It’s not like Iwaizumi or Hanamaki had really given any indication that they were bad, and hunters typically did things quickly, send a team in and get out quickly. Or, at least, that’s what he heard happened. He shook his head and focused on looking for a cave. 

There was one he could probably fit himself and Hanamaki into, so he darted inside to make sure Makki would be able to breathe if he brought him in. The cave seemed to extend for a while, farther than he could actually see, and even had a small ledge for Hanamaki to sit on. He swam back to him.

“Any luck?”

He smirked. “Hold on.” He grabbed Makki’s hands again and waited for him to take a breath before heading into the cave. He didn’t let go of him when they surfaced this time, instead holding on until Hanamaki got his breath back.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” Hanamaki gasped, still slightly out of breath. “So what’s in here, anyway. It’s so dark I can’t really see anything.”

“Can’t you?” Matsukawa asked in surprise. Hanamaki shook his head. “Well, uh, gimme a sec, I think I can fix that.” It wasn’t a good idea and he hadn’t ever really attempted to _just_ light up his pendant, it just happened when he used magic. It took a few seconds to figure out, but he got most of the cave lit in a soft blue eventually.

“You can do that?” Hanamaki asked in wonder, slightly breathless. He nodded. “That’s amazing.”

Matsukawa wasn’t entirely certain what to say in response. Magic was mostly a normal thing to him. He was saved from needing to say something by an eerie wail from down the cave. He whipped around to see what it was, Hanamaki doing the same. They both slowly turned to look at each other. “You heard that, right?” Hanamaki nodded. “Okay there’s a ledge over there,” Matsukawa pointed to it, “get on that and try to not touch the water as much as you can.”

“Why? What is it?” he asked as he followed the instructions.

Matsukawa made his pendant shine brighter. “It’s a spirit and it’ll try to drown you if it can. I won’t let it.” He looked around carefully, trying to find where something looked a little off. It was much easier on a full or new moon because then the spirit would be solid and _very_ hard to miss. This, though, in the middle of the day was much more difficult.

There was another loud wail, this time much closer. Matsukawa turned sharply to see where it was coming from. He still couldn’t figure out where the spirit actually was. It would be much more simple if he were here by himself so that he could use his magic or just swim away, but he had to make sure Hanamaki was safe. Hanamaki was standing on the ledge, pressed against the wall. There wasn’t much room between him and the water.

Matsukawa sighed. It wasn’t like he hadn’t shown Hanamaki some of his magic already. May as well show him what he can _really_ do. He closed his eyes, focused, and took a deep breath before opening his eyes again. Ignoring Hanamaki’s awed voice saying, “Your eyes are glowing,” he searched for the spirit again. Everything was much clearer like this, he could see the individual water droplets on the cave walls and the smoothness of the rock where the water had eroded it and _there_ was the spirit. He darted towards it, focusing energy on his hand.

Hanamaki watched in amazement as Matsukawa darted all around the cave, eyes _literally_ glowing. Every time he stopped, there was another wail. They were getting progressively louder and Hanamaki wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. He saw movement at the edge of his field of vision and turned to see... another Matsukawa? More started appearing, forming a circle. He couldn’t actually tell what they were circling around, but he assumed it was the spirit. There was a point in the middle of the circle where the air seemed distorted, but he couldn’t tell if that was from the light from Matsukawa or not.

Matsukawa - well, one of him - rushed toward the center of the circle and suddenly the rest of them were gone. The glow started to fade from his eyes as he looked towards Hanamaki. “Come on, the spirit’s just stunned for now.”

Hanamaki nodded and slipped into the water, taking a deep breath before Matsukawa took his hand and led him away. They didn’t stop until the cave was well out of sight and Hanamaki’s lungs were burning for air. Matsukawa didn’t speak as Hanamaki caught his breath, which Hanamaki was grateful for. He was still processing what had happened in the cave. He knew he had been in danger, but he was _way_ too distracted by the actual _magic_ happening to care. The light alone at the beginning was beautiful.

“Are you okay?” Matsukawa asked. “You’re just kinda staring at me.”

“That was amazing,” Hanamaki breathed, not quite able to tear his gaze away from the pendant.

“Not every day you almost die from something most land dwellers usually don’t believe in.”

“I wouldn’t have died,” Hanamaki responded, finally looking up at Matsukawa, “You were there.”

Matsukawa blinked, entirely unsure what to say to that. There was no way this guy trusted him just like that. It was practically unthinkable. “You’re awfully trusting.”

Hanamaki snorted. “That’s great coming from you. You and Oikawa who have been secretive since the beginning, and yet you let me see you use magic.”

“It was a stressful situation!” Matsukawa said defensively, though he did have a small smile on his face now. 

“Also I figure since Iwaizumi seems to be positively _enamored_ with Oikawa, I figure we’re gonna end up friends anyway. May as well start that way instead of starting off on a bad foot.”

Matsukawa smiled, “So I’m not the only one who noticed?”

“Absolutely not. I know I’m doing my job on my end of teasing Iwaizumi relentlessly about it until he admits something, so I trust you’ll do the same.”

“I wouldn’t dream of a world in which I wasn’t teasing Oikawa constantly,” Matsukawa said solemnly.

“Shall we go back to the lovebirds, make sure they aren’t plotting against us?”

Matsukawa nodded, holding his arm out as though he was Hanamaki’s escort. “I’m not sure why they ever would.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally actual plot development in this chapter woo
> 
> find me on tumblr @theprettysettersclub

Iwaizumi held the teardrop shaped pendant up so it shone in the sunlight. The stone was the most brilliant green he had ever seen.

“It’s for protection,” Oikawa said, breaking his focus. “While you’re at sea. It won’t fall off and the cord won’t break unless you take it off yourself or someone else takes it off.”

“Where did you even get this?” Iwaizumi asked, still unable to take his eyes off of it.

“Oh, uh, I got it from a friend after we left yesterday.” Iwaizumi could tell that wasn’t the whole story, based on how Oikawa was subtly avoiding eye contact, but he didn’t feel a need to push it. “Do you like it?”

“It’s beautiful.” Iwaizumi looked up. “Thank you.”

“Aren’t you gonna put it on, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa asked, stubbornly ignoring the blush on his cheeks.

Iwaizumi slipped the cord over his head. The pendant was cool against his chest, but it felt comfortable. “You’re sure it won’t fall off? I would hate to lose it.”

Oikawa nodded. “It’s similar to mine, but with a different purpose. If I can swim around all day and it won’t fall off then I’m sure a bit of sailing won’t make yours fall off.”

Iwaizumi glanced down at Oikawa’s pendant. It had a similar shininess to his, but it almost had a more powerful feel to it. He slid closer to the edge of the rock and put his feet in the water. Almost immediately Oikawa folded his arms over his legs and rested his head on them.

“Is this alright, Iwa-chan?” he asked quietly, looking up at him. Iwaizumi nodded and tentatively placed his hand on top of Oikawa’s head. He didn’t move away, so Iwaizumi figured it was okay. Oikawa shifted so he could look out over the water and Iwaizumi absentmindedly played with the short hairs at Oikawa’s neck.

They stayed like that for a while, just watching the water. Iwaizumi found himself watching Oikawa more than the rolling waves of the ocean. He could tell Oikawa was strong, likely stronger than him from living in the water, but he didn’t necessarily look extremely muscular. His skin seemed to be almost always cold, even after staying in the sun for a while. And his eyes, though Iwaizumi couldn’t see them at the moment, were such a soft brown usually. He felt as though he could learn anything he wanted to about Oikawa just by looking into his eyes. The way they flashed like lightning in a storm when he was angry, the way they practically sparkled when Iwaizumi talked about human things, Oikawa’s eyes truly were windows to his soul.

“The water’s too still,” Oikawa said suddenly. Iwaizumi jumped, having thought Oikawa had fallen asleep.

“What-” Iwaizumi was cut off as Oikawa shoved his hand against his mouth. He put a finger up to his lips then pulled Iwaizumi off the rock and into the water.

“The ocean is never this still on its own,” Oikawa murmured. Iwaizumi flinched when the rowboat suddenly went underwater. “That was just me,” Oikawa said in the same hushed tone.

“What’s going on?” he whispered.

“I’ll tell you soon,” Oikawa answered. “Take a deep breath.”

Iwaizumi did as he was told and Oikawa grabbed his hands and they were shooting through the water. He occasionally felt a small pulse go through him, but thought nothing of it. When they finally resurfaced, he was almost desperate for air. He vaguely registered that Oikawa had taken him to Hanamaki and Matsukawa. And that Oikawa hadn’t let go. Honestly, that was probably a good thing with how short of breath he was.

“Mattsun, that cave you found yesterday, how close is it?” Oikawa rushed out.

“Close, why?”

“The ocean’s too still. If I’m wrong, then no harm done. If I’m right, we have to be hiding in that cave like five minutes ago.”

Hanamaki and Iwaizumi exchanged confused looks. They didn’t have any time to ask questions before they were both pulled under. Iwaizumi almost started struggling, worried he would run out of breath again, when he realized that he wasn’t even getting wet. It was like there was a bubble around him. Looking around, what little he could see from everything rushing past, he saw that there was something similar around Hanamaki. He wasn’t sure why Oikawa couldn’t have just done this earlier, but he figured he had his reasons.

Suddenly, everything went dark. He couldn’t tell where they were supposed to be, but he assumed it was some sort of tunnel into the cave Oikawa had mentioned. The only way he could tell they had broken the surface was the water finally closing in around everywhere but his head.

“Mattsun, light,” Hanamaki’s voice came out of the darkness. The cave was filled with a weird blue light and Iwaizumi could finally see.

“What’s going on?” he asked. Oikawa wasn’t looking at him. He was chewing on the side of his thumb, with the other hand still holding onto him. “You said you’d tell me, so tell me.”

“I know, I know, just,” Oikawa sighed, “give me a second.” He was silent for a while, even staying almost completely still save for the flick of his tail to keep himself afloat. Iwaizumi felt another weird pulse go through him, this time accompanied by a ripple of water coming from Oikawa. “I was right.”

“You mean-” Matsukawa stopped when Oikawa nodded.

Oikawa turned to him. “So you know how we had that argument the other day?” Iwaizumi nodded. “And how there was a storm after that?” He nodded again. “That was my fault, but it was big enough to attract some... unwanted attention. And now, there are some unwanted visitors.”

“Hunters?” Iwaizumi asked.

Oikawa nodded. “I’ve got a plan, but you’ll have to trust me.”

“Of course,” Iwaizumi answered with barely any hesitation. 

Oikawa pressed his fingertips to Iwaizumi’s waist and he felt a warmth spread through him along with small pricks of pain where Oikawa’s fingers were. When he removed his fingers, he grabbed onto Iwaizumi’s hands. Iwaizumi didn’t have time to take a breath before he was pulled underwater, almost all the way to the bottom of the cave. He started pulling against Oikawa who only held on tighter the more he struggled.

“Iwa-chan, relax,” Oikawa pleaded, “I promise you’ll be fine. Breathe.”

Iwaizumi shook his head, disregarding the fact that he could actually _hear_ Oikawa clearly for the moment. His lungs were burning for air and his struggles getting weaker.

“If you can’t breathe, I’ll pull you back up. _Trust me._ I lent you some magic so you’ll be able to get out of here if I can’t come back. You _will_ be able to breathe. I promise.” Iwaizumi stopped struggling, but he still refused to take a breath. “Just try, please.”

He closed his eyes and took in a small breath. It was weird at first to get used to inhaling water, but he wasn’t drowning. When he opened his eyes again, Oikawa was smiling at him. He couldn’t help but smile a little himself.

Oikawa pulled him back up to the surface and he realized he could see parts of the cave he couldn’t before, parts where the light wasn’t reaching. Oikawa swam over to Matsukawa and they started talking in hushed tones. That didn’t last long, though, when Matsukawa started yelling.

“I won’t let you do it! It’s too dangerous.”

“Mattsun-”

“Think with your brain for like _two_ seconds. There’s no way that will work!”

“Mattsun-”

“I won’t let you do it.”

“Mattsun,” Oikawa said positioning himself in front of Matsukawa, “this is my fault. I’m not gonna wait in here not knowing what’s going on out there. They almost definitely know at least I’m here. They don’t know about you or Iwaizumi or Makki. I’m going out there. You have to stay here.”

“I’ll go with you,” Matsukawa suggested.

“We both know I’m more capable of fighting than you are. I’m going,” Oikawa said and raced out of the cave. Iwaizumi watched Matsukawa swim after him but come back only a few seconds later.

“That asshole trapped us in here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also bc it's not v clear, at the end of the chapter, oikawa basically emptied the tunnel part leading to the cave of water so mattsun couldn't follow
> 
> and this is the last we're probably gonna see of oikawa for a while


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was actually gonna post this tomorrow but i really wanna update it now, so here it is

“What does that even mean?” Hanamaki demanded. He and Iwaizumi had moved to sit on the ledge at the side of the cave. “How can we be trapped in here?”

“He like,” Matsukawa motioned with his hands as he tried to figure out how to say it, “moved the water. I can't get us out without water.”

“Can't you just move it back?” Iwaizumi asked. 

Matsukawa sighed. “I can but only minimally. Like we said before, I’m an Illusionist. Oikawa’s the Manipulator. My magic can somewhat do most things but illusions are my specialty. Manipulating the water is Oikawa’s, and he's, like, one of the best. The only way that water is gonna move back where it should is if Oikawa wants it to. Or he can't hold it.”

“What do you mean ‘can’t hold it’?”

“Like if he passes out or loses his pendant or... uh... dies.”

Iwaizumi and Hanamaki paled. “How... how likely is it that he’ll die?”

“It’s more likely that he’ll be taken or pass out first. They... probably won’t kill him.”

“Are we supposed to just be okay with that?” Hanamaki asked angrily. “There’s no way to help him?”

“Believe me, no one wants to help him more than me. But for now, we can’t do anything. Especially you two. There’s no way I’d allow you two to be caught up in all of this. ”

“We already are,” Iwaizumi argued. “Oikawa said he lent me some of his magic, so can't I do something?”

“He… what?” Matsukawa asked. “No. You can't do anything to help him. If you knew how to use the magic, you'd be able to, but he just did it now, so you can't. Honestly you'd probably get in his way.”

Iwaizumi scowled. “Can't you just teach me then?” 

“I...” Matsukawa groaned. “There’s not time.”

“But-” Iwaizumi cut himself off with a sharp cry, one hand flying up to grasp at his shoulder. “Fuck, what the hell?”

“Iwa-what’s wrong?” Hanamaki panicked. 

“I just-” Iwaizumi slowly lowered his hand. “That's weird. It felt like I got shot or something but it feels fine and there's no mark.”

“Iwaizumi, you said Oikawa shared some of his magic with you, right?” Matsukawa asked urgently.

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with this?” Iwaizumi responded.

Matsukawa ran his fingers through his hair and groaned. Of course Oikawa would do that. Typically only mates shared their magic with each other and it was a fair exchange. A bond like the one Matsukawa was pretty sure Oikawa had just formed with Iwaizumi had a few drawbacks, though. Specifically sharing pain, which meant if Iwaizumi ever felt any pain with seemingly no reason, as he just had, Oikawa was feeling that but worse. He didn't get a chance to answer because of a strong pulse of Oikawa’s magic followed by a wave through the water then nothing. 

“What was that?” Iwaizumi asked.

“There shouldn’t be any waves in here if we’re not connected to the rest of the water, right?” Hanamaki asked. “So that means the water’s back, right?”

Matsukawa nodded, staring at the entrance to the cave. A minute passed, then two. None of them made a sound. Matsukawa’s tail barely twitched.

“He’s not coming back,” Iwaizumi said quietly, “is he?”

“He is,” Matsukawa insisted, “he has to. I can’t lose him too.”

“Him too?” Iwaizumi asked. 

“Oikawa told you about his parents and his sister and her mate and their son, right?” Iwaizumi nodded. “My brother was Oikawa’s sister's mate. Oikawa is really the only family I have left. Which is why he _is_ coming back.”

Iwaizumi shared a look with Hanamaki. “Maybe we should go out to check? He... might be hurt and that’s why he’s not coming back.”

“I don’t think we should leave yet,” Matsukawa said quietly. “The hunters could still be out there waiting for others to show up. For now, it’s better to just wait here.”

“Can’t you do the thing Oikawa did to check earlier?” Iwaizumi asked.

Matsukawa shook his head. “That’s something only Manipulators can do. And Iwaizumi, you can in theory, but I don’t know how to do it myself, so I couldn’t reach you. We’ll wait a few minutes and then go out if he’s still not back.”

Hanamaki and Iwaizumi nodded. “We’ll trust you,” Hanamaki said.

They waited in a tense silence. Hanamaki and Iwaizumi wanted to say something, but they couldn’t find a way to break through the silence.

Iwaizumi nearly jumped out of his skin when there was a high pitched shriek from farther into the cave.

“New plan,” Matsukawa said, “we’re leaving now.”

“What is-” Iwaizumi started.

“Spirit,” Matsukawa answered shortly. “Oikawa showed you how to breathe underwater, right?” Iwaizumi nodded. “Good. I’m gonna take Makki back to the rock we’ve been meeting at, then I’ll be back for you. Try to stay out of the water while I’m gone.”

“Uh... okay,” Iwaizumi said and watched Matsukawa swim off with Hanamaki.

The scream came again, much closer, and Iwaizumi pushed himself to his feet in order to back away from the water more. He looked around the cave, surprised that he could still see in the dark. In fact, he could almost see better without Matsukawa’s light than with.

 _This must be one of the effects of whatever Oikawa did,_ he thought. He pushed the collar of his shirt to the side to look at the place that had been hurting earlier. There was no mark or anything else to show that the pain hadn’t just been a factor of his imagination. Then he moved on to lift up the hem of his shirt. The places where Oikawa’s fingertips had touched had raised to be small sores, sensitive to the touch. Out of curiosity, he placed his fingertips over the top of each of them and pressed down gently.

His surroundings went blurry so he couldn’t see anything around him, but they gradually came into focus again. Only it wasn’t the cave. It looked like he was close to Ghost Rock, he recognized the cluster of dead trees on top of the cliff. He couldn’t really see much, just a part of the cliff and the trees and the bottom of the boat he seemed to be in and someone’s boot. He could tell there were people talking, probably right above him, but he couldn’t make out any of the words.

A loud screech brought him back to the cave and he opened his eyes, not realizing he had closed them, and came face to face with what he assumed was the spirit. It looked human, with the obvious exception of how it was floating just above the water. It came closer and closer to him, not moving any part of its body in order to float closer.

“Hajime,” it groaned and he stiffened. It shouldn’t know his name. As if its appearance and unsettling voice weren’t enough, it somehow knew his name. “You abandoned him, let him go off on his own. Whatever happens to your dear mermaid is your fault.” It seemed to have to force out the word mermaid, reminding him of how Oikawa spat the word siren when they first met. “He would have listened to you and you know it.” Its voice was getting smoother as it talked and its face changed too, morphing into something that looked eerily similar to OIkawa.

“Y-you’re lying,” Iwaizumi shook his head, trying to tune out the spirit.

“Am I? Then why do you believe me? If I’m only lying to you and you say you know it, why are you listening?” The spirit was right in front of him now, close enough that Iwaizumi would barely have to reach out in order to touch it. “Face it, it’s your fault. You were the one that made him mad. You were the reason for the storm that summoned the hunters here. _It’s. Your. Fault. _”__

__“Stop talking,” Iwaizumi almost yelled, clenching his hands into fists._ _

__“Don’t you think the other mermaid should have been back by now?” it said, almost conversationally. “He probably decided to leave you behind. After all, we both know the hunters are gone, along with your mermaid. The other one probably hates you now. He knows it’s your fault, too.”_ _

__“I said **stop**!” Iwaizumi yelled, barely even registering his fist connecting with the spirit’s face._ _

__The spirit _did_ finally stop talking, cradling its jaw in one hand. It seemed just as surprised as Iwaizumi._ _

__“What the hell are you?” it hissed._ _

__It rushed at him and Iwaizumi put up his arms to brace himself, but it never reached him. He opened his eyes to see Matsukawa between him and the spirit._ _

__“Back the fuck off,” he growled. They had some sort of staredown before the spirit actually did back down._ _

__“Only because it’s more interesting this way.” Then it was gone, simply disappeared._ _

__“Iwaizumi, are you alright?” Matsukawa asked, turning to face him. Iwaizumi nodded, but his shaking hands proved the opposite. “Okay, let’s just get you out of here.”_ _

__Iwaizumi slid into the water silently. He didn’t bother holding his breath this time, trusting that whatever Oikawa did that let him breathe underwater wouldn’t wear off. After a few seconds, they resurfaced right outside of the cave._ _

__“I’m sorry,” Matsukawa murmured. “I should have realized before, but when Makki and I were there, there was only a spirit. What you just faced was a siren.”_ _

__“A... siren?”_ _

__Matsukawa nodded. “They get in your head and either play off your biggest fears or desires. They have to because they can’t touch you if you’re not in the water, so they need to lure you in. Whatever it said to you, don’t listen to it.”_ _

__“You said it can’t touch me, but... would I be able to touch it if I’m not in the water?” Iwaizumi asked._ _

__“Not if you’re not in the water, no. Why?”_ _

__“It’s nothing, just something the siren said.”_ _

__“I shouldn’t have left you, I’m sorry,” Matsukawa apologized again, looking down. “I also looked for Oikawa. That’s why I was gone for so long.”_ _

__“He’s gone, isn’t he?” Iwaizumi asked sadly._ _

__Matsukawa nodded. “Him and any trace of hunters. They... work fast.”_ _

__“I’m sorry,” Iwaizumi apologized._ _

__“There was nothing you could do. Come on, let’s get back to Makki.”_ _

__It didn’t take long to get back to Ghost Rock and find Hanamaki waiting for them, looking out over the water, still so beautiful and unfitting for everything that had just happened. There were very few words exchanged before Iwaizumi and Hanamaki were on their way back to the island and Matsukawa was on his way back to his own village. The trip back to the island was quiet, too. Iwaizumi chose to walk back to his own house on his own, though he could tell Hanamaki wanted to come with._ _

__He had time on the way back to think. Perhaps his mother was right._ _

__He never should have gone to Ghost Rock._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was actually a fun chapter to write lol and Oikawa'll be coming back in either the next chapter or the one after that and you'll all get to know what went down
> 
> find me on tumblr @theprettysettersclub


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so apparently mermay is like a thing so this update is for mermay and there may (lmao) be another one later in the month
> 
> also have fun with the Angst  
> oikawa will return in the next chapter

He knew it was a bad idea from the start. He had thought that of any of them, Oikawa and Matsukawa would be the most cautious. They had both been warned of the dangers countless times and even lost most of their family. Suga had wanted to stop them, but he couldn’t keep them on lockdown forever and they’d find a way out of it. Even though he had been expecting it, that didn’t mean he was prepared for when Matsukawa came back alone.

Suga didn’t say anything as they both swam to Matsukawa’s house.

“I’m sorry,” Matsukawa apologized quietly.

“It’s not your fault alone,” Suga responded, pulling Matsukawa into a hug.

“I couldn’t do anything. He just left, he said he’d be back.” Matsukawa held onto Suga tightly, arms shaking. “He’s gone.”

“He’s smart. If anyone can find their way out, Oikawa can. We just have to believe in him.”

“I want to find him. I don’t want to wait.”

“Mattsun, no.” Suga held him at arm’s length. “Promise me you won’t go after him. We can’t lose both of you.”

“I just-”

Suga cut him off. “Promise me.”

Matsukawa looked down. “I promise. I won’t try to go after him.”

“Thank you,” he sighed. “I’d better tell the rest.”

“There’s one more thing,” Matsukawa said, stopping suga before he could leave. “There was a siren.”

“You’re sure?”

Matsukawa nodded. “I don’t think it’ll really bother us much, but it’s definitely there. It’s in a cave that you can only get to if you can breathe underwater and it doesn’t seem to feel like going anywhere, so the land dwellers should be safe from it, too.”

“Is there any other bad news?” Matsukawa shook his head. “I’ll let the others know about Oikawa, but for now we’ll keep the siren a secret.”

\--

He was extremely uncomfortable, lying on his shoulder in an awkward way. His limbs didn’t want to cooperate, though. His wrists hurt, too, though he couldn’t figure out why.

\--

Iwaizumi opened his back door just enough for him to slip through and closed it quietly behind him.

“Hajime,” came his mother’s voice. He nearly jumped out of his skin. “Where have you been?”

Iwaizumi turned around to face her. “I was just-”

“With Takahiro?” she finished, holding out a towel for him. He took it and thanked her. “Only Takahiro?”

“What-” Iwaizumi tried to answer.

His mom grabbed the cord around his neck and pulled just enough so that the pendant slipped out of his shirt. “And where did you get _this_?”

“Could you let me explain, please?” Iwaizumi asked frustratedly. He tucked his necklace back into his shirt. “I have been with Hanamaki all day, same as yesterday and the day before and the day before and like every day this week. We went to Ghost Rock the past few days, but we weren’t planning to go again after today.”

“And?” She crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “I know that’s not all.”

“You probably wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

Iwaizumi sighed. “You're going to think I'm crazy.” His mother just tapped her foot. “Fine. A few days ago Makki and I went out to Ghost Rock and we met a mermaid there and we talked for a bit then he left. So we went back the next day because we were curious and he showed up again with a friend and I accidentally pissed him off and that's what the storm was from and then the next day he and I talked and I apologized while Makki went off with the other mermaid for a while and then today he gave me this necklace.” Iwaizumi couldn't bring himself to bring up the part with the hunters. Or the siren. He honestly wasn’t ready to talk about most of what happened, especially with his mom.

“Did your mermaid friend tell you the significance of the necklace?”

“You... believe me?” Iwaizumi stared at her. “He, uh, he told me it was for protection while I’m at sea. And that it won’t fall off.”

“So he didn’t, then. Hajime, it’s important to know that mermaids don’t share their magic with just anyone. Especially not humans. The fact that he _willingly_ gave you a piece of mermaid magic means that he trusts you more than you could understand.”

\--

He struggled to keep his eyes open, but they must have used some sort of tranquilizer at some point. Everything looked fuzzy and he couldn’t focus on anything. Gradually, it all faded to darkness.

\--

“Mattsun, you have to come out of your room at some point. You can’t just completely shut yourself out.”

“Go away, Yahaba,” Matsukawa yelled at his door. “I’m not coming out.”

“We’re not going to force you to come out, but we’ll be here for you when you decide to.”

There was no more sound from Yahaba, so Matsukawa assumed he swam away. He knew that he should at least get up at some point, but it was hard to find the motivation to. And even small conversations tired him out. He’d gone through this before, when his brother died, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with this time. In fact, it was worse because this time he didn’t have someone who knew _exactly_ what he was going through and how to act around him.

The rest of the village was nice and Matsukawa realized that they were all affected by Oikawa’s disappearance, but they didn’t understand how it felt to lose the one last bit of family he had.

\--

They had fixed the ache in his shoulder, but he was still sore everywhere else and if he moved his arm much the ache came back. It was difficult to think with the pain and the effects of the tranquilizer that had likely been used. Going back to sleep was easier than fighting it, so he did.

\--

“Make sure to bring me back something nice,” Hanamaki said with a smile. It looked a little forced to Iwaizumi, but it was completely understandable. “I expect only the best of souvenirs.”

“Well, of course,” Iwaizumi played along. “That’s all you deserve.”

“And here,” Hanamaki pulled something out of the bag he had brought along, “a journal for your adventures. There’s hardly enough pages for you to be able to write about every single day, so pick the good ones or get another journal. I expect a full and detailed report. And maybe send a letter or two every now and then.”

“Take care of my mom. Even if she says she’s fine. She doesn’t like accepting help, so just help anyway.”

“Sounds a lot like someone else I know,” Hanamaki muttered. Iwaizumi punched him in the arm. “Kidding, kidding, now go say goodbye to your mom.”

“I’ll see you when I get back,” Iwaizumi responded, pulling Hanamaki into a quick hug before turning to his mother.

She straightened his shirt and ruffled his hair before pulling him into a bone crushing hug. For someone so frail from sickness, she apparently never lost her muscle. “Do not let anyone see that necklace. It’s more of a danger than you realize.”

Iwaizumi wished he could tell her that he knew _exactly_ what kind of danger it was, but she probably wouldn’t let him out of her sight if she knew everything that had happened. “I won’t. I promise.”

“Good,” she sighed and loosened her grip just the slightest. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. See you in six months.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy end of mermay  
> as promised, an entire chapter of oikawa
> 
> there is a bit of blood in this chapter, so if that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable, skip the paragraph that starts with 'A weapon...' and the one after that

Oikawa _may_ have lied to Iwaizumi when he said he had a plan and it was painfully obvious now that he was out of the cave. He wove through the rocks in the general direction of the hunters. The only thing he could think to do is try to lead them away and hope they lose him at some point. There were too many boats to be able to fight them all off, he knew that much. 

The boats started moving towards him in unison and he continued forward for a few seconds more before darting off to the side. A few off to the side followed that motion, but most of them continued down their original path. The tide was going out, so he either had to get rid of the hunters quickly or attempt to outlast them. Getting rid of them quickly seemed better because he wasn’t sure he would be able to outswim them forever.

With that in mind, he changed his course once again to swim directly at the few that had separated from the main group. He started gathering up a wave in order to capsize a few of the boats. He followed the wave closely, only allowing it to go ahead of him so he had some sort of idea what was going on above the water.

Once it was big enough to roll over some of the rocks and he was actually close to the boats, he realized that some of the hunters weren’t _in_ the boats. They were waiting on top of the rocks. He swore and dove deeper, not willing to turn back at this point. When he was nearly directly under the boats, he rose the wave up so it would be steep enough to tip the boats.

To his surprise, only a few of the boats actually tipped. Somehow most of them remained upright. He tested the water around one of the boats, trying to simply make it spin and found resistance to his magic. 

“Shit,” Oikawa muttered. “They have magic, why do they have magic?”

The few boats he had managed to tip were righted and the hunters that had fallen out were up on the rocks. He turned around to retreat just as something broke the surface of the water. He twisted to the side to avoid it. Some sort of weapon shot past him. He wasn’t sure what it was called, but it was long with a sharp arrow shape on the end. More of them started to be shot into the water around him. Most of them missed by a lot, but there were some close calls where they just barely grazed him. There were no injuries he couldn’t heal quickly, however.

The Manipulators they had on the boats must have been occupied, not that Oikawa was complaining. He could push a good portion of the weapons away from himself. He used the water to give himself an extra boost of speed. It tired him out faster, but at least he could out swim the things the hunters were shooting at him. 

He nearly came to a complete stop when he almost ran into a net. It was stretched between two rocks, reaching the ocean floor and probably farther up into the air. Oikawa turned sharply to avoid swimming into it. In the process, he used the extra water giving him momentum to knock the hunters off the rocks and then tangle them in the net.

The boats were off to his right now but they didn’t seem to be moving other than to float around a bit, so Oikawa figured the hunters were all on top of the rocks or they were waiting in the boats. On the one hand, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about the boats anymore, but now he would have to figure out how to deal with the hunters on the rocks.

The weapons had somewhat stopped coming at him, but that just made Oikawa more on edge. There were more nets now and it was starting to tire Oikawa out, avoiding the nets so much.

“Come on, Tooru, think,” he muttered to himself.

He knew they were forcing him to the wall of rocks, but he couldn’t do anything about it unless he wanted to go into open water. Oikawa decided he’d use that only as a last resort. They’d have a clear shot at him if he went into the open and with the Manipulators they had with them, they’d almost certainly hit him. 

The weapons started coming again, likely the hunters he’d thrown off the rocks each time he avoided a net had gotten themselves untangled.. It was even harder to avoid them now with the nets forcing him in certain directions. He was getting more and more nervous about this. When he left the cave, he had figured he’d be able to lead the hunters away at least, but he hadn’t been prepared for them to have Manipulators or this many hunters. 

He was getting too tired. He knew he wouldn't be able to last much longer, but he also knew that he couldn't let them find Matsukawa and Iwaizumi and Hanamaki. Oikawa moved to swim close to the ocean floor. If there were sand, he'd kick it up to create cover for himself, but there were only rocks. The water started working against him and he knew he was fucked. Oikawa could handle nets and weapons and whatever else they threw at him, but if they were strong enough to overpower his own magic, there was no chance for him. 

He darted off to the left, swimming parallel to the rock wall and directly towards the open water. The nets stopped appearing and he realized that this was exactly what the hunters wanted, but he was running out of options. He tried to use the water to give him even more speed, but the most he could do was lessen the resistance a little.

A weapon came at him and he first tried to deflect it, but his magic was completely ineffective. When he tried to twist away, he found the water was even more resistant to him moving to the side and he couldn’t move fast enough. He cried out as the weapon went through his left shoulder. He hadn’t realized earlier, but there was a rope attached to the blunt end which pulled the weapon back so the edges of the head caught on his shoulder. The shape of the head made it impossible for Oikawa to push it back through.

Oikawa was already dizzy from magic use, and the blood loss didn’t help. He tried to at least stop the bleeding with his magic, but there was something on the weapon that was making it hard to use his magic. He’d all but stopped in the water. The cloud of blood floating up made it difficult to see what was going on, but he was in so much pain that all he could really do was curl up into a ball gripping onto his shoulder. He was vaguely aware of the rope being pulled and dragging him through the water, but he couldn’t concentrate on anything but the pain.

They hauled him all the way to the surface of the water and he didn’t even have the energy to try to struggle. Even so, it took a few hunters to be able to lift him out of the water. His eyes slid to a boat at his side and he decided that if he was going to be taken here and now, he may as well make it inconvenient for them. With that thought, he promptly filled that boat with water to sink it before turning his gaze to the next boat. He didn’t bother with the one he was being pulled into, the hunters would have made sure he didn’t sink this one.

One of the hunters grabbed at his necklace and Oikawa gained a brief burst of energy, knocking him into the water. He tried to bring one of his arms up to hold onto his necklace, but his left arm wouldn’t move and two hunters were restraining his right. Two more boats were sunk before one of the hunters managed to get close enough to take his necklace off. He felt the rest of the magic stored up in him rush out, enough to make a small wave.

It was barely any work for the hunters after that. One of them did something with the weapon, making the tip fall off so he could pull it out the other way. Oikawa grimaced when it came out, but he didn’t make a sound. He refused to give them that satisfaction. The hunters holding him up threw him to the bottom of the boat and he blacked out for a few seconds.

When he came to, they were moving. He could see a cliff with a cluster of dead trees, but nothing else really outside the boat. He was extremely uncomfortable, lying on his shoulder in an awkward way. His limbs didn’t want to cooperate, though. His wrists hurt, too, though he couldn’t figure out why. He felt the bond he had made with Iwaizumi awaken. Either Matsukawa told him about what he could do or he figured out on his own. He hoped Matsukawa told Iwaizumi about the bond, but he wasn’t sure how much Matsukawa himself knew.

The hunters in the boat were talking, but it took so much energy to focus on them, he had no idea what they were saying. He flinched when one of them put their hand on him, but immediately after he was unconscious again.

Oikawa woke up again later, still in the same boat. He struggled to keep his eyes open, but they must have used some sort of tranquilizer earlier. Everything looked fuzzy and he couldn’t focus on anything. Gradually, it all faded to darkness again.

He came to once more, not having moved, but it was bright and he was hotter than he’d ever been. They had fixed the ache in his shoulder, but he was still sore everywhere else and if he moved his arm much the ache came back. It was difficult to think with the pain and the effects of the tranquilizer that had likely been used. Going back to sleep was easier than fighting it, so he did.

The next time he woke up, he was back in the water. It felt weird to be in the water without a necklace. He was in a cave, or as far as he could tell it was a cave. The ceiling stretched far above what he could see and walkways seemed to be carved out of the walls with archways leading places Oikawa couldn’t see. There was a wide river cutting through the center of the cave and that was where he was currently. Well, he was in a cage in the river. It was just barely big enough for him to fit in if he wanted to completely stretch out and stay under water. Countless cages spanned the sides of each river bank, most of them filled with mermaids of various shapes, sizes, and colors. He was pretty sure there was even a deep sea mermaid farther down, away from the light.

“So you’re awake, then,” came a voice from behind him. He spun around. “You put up quite a fight.”

Oikawa narrowed his eyes and lowered himself in the water so his mouth was under. The man smiled and it reminded Oikawa of someone, he just couldn’t figure out who it was.

“Not feeling too talkative?” He asked, sitting down and letting his feet dangle in the water. “That’s alright, I’m fine with doing most of the talking for today. Even though you’ve been horribly inconvenient, I always find it’s important to make a good first impression. So far, you’re doing wonderfully. You haven’t even tried to drown me yet. Most don’t get this far without trying.”

Oikawa was seriously tempted to. If he knew for sure the man didn’t have magic, he would have already.

“Now, you may not know this, but the little stunt you pulled _right before_ we got you in the boat did us an incredible disservice. All the boats had to be pulled up and the supplies salvaged. It’s going to cost a lot of money to replace what you damaged. So you’ll have to forgive me if I’m a bit harsher than I would have been with your punishment.”

The man seemed content to just ramble on to Oikawa. He stopped listening after a while, it didn’t seem like he was saying anything important.

“Would you look at how late it’s gotten,” the man said, referring to the sun they could see from the mouth of the cave almost completely set. “I’ll leave you be for tonight, but tomorrow you’ll get to meet one of my students. You’ll most definitely have fun with him.”

The man got up to leave and Oikawa wanted to sink to the bottom of the cage, but the man turned back around before he could.

“I nearly forgot to tell you my name, how careless of me! I’ll be getting your name soon enough seeing as I run this entire place, but you don’t even have mine,” the man was gesturing wildly as he spoke and Oikawa decided he was _way_ too dramatic. “My name is Iwaizumi Katsurou.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr @theprettysettersclub and scream at me for this


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was gonna be longer, but I got really excited about posting it lmao whoops
> 
> I'm kinda trying something new with Iwaizumi's parts, so sorry if it seems weird or something
> 
> Also! there are fun surprises to come in the next few chapters (actually fun surprises. not surprises like iwa's dad is a hunter surprises)

_Day 1_

Makki wanted me to write this for him, but I think I’ll dedicate this to Oikawa. I don’t want to forget him. It’s a bit of a ridiculous idea, but I want to try and find him once I get back. I just have a feeling I’ll be able to. I tried doing the same thing I did the other day, because I’m pretty sure I was seeing through Oikawa’s eyes, but nothing happened. He might have been asleep or something. I can’t help but feel it’s my fault that Oikawa got taken by the hunters.

 

_Day 4_

I can’t help but think that my mom was hiding something from me when we talked about Oikawa. She never said anything about how she knew about mermaids. ~~Maybe she’s a hunter?~~ No, she would never. Maybe she knew a mermaid once? Maybe my dad is a mermaid. It might explain why he’s not around very often. He might have to stay in the water most of the time. I’m not sure.

 

_Day 5_

We stopped in a port today. There’s a lot left to do before we leave again. We unloaded about half of the cargo today that we needed to, so tomorrow we’ll finish and start reloading. We’ll stay here a couple of days and then we aren’t set to land again for a while, so we’re encouraged to enjoy our free time before we leave again.

So far the skies have been clear, but Captain Sawamura is expecting a storm. I asked Kyoutani about it (He keeps following me around for some reason?) and he said the Captain is almost never wrong.

We’re also getting some new crew members, but I’m not sure who they are. Everyone I know already seems nice, even though I haven’t gotten to know them very much yet.

 

_Day 8_

The storm is finally over so we’re heading out tomorrow. Captain just wants to be sure it’s over before we leave again. He estimates it’ll be about 3 or 4 weeks before we land again. We’re all going to a restaurant tonight for dinner before we leave so we have one meal with real food before we have only the things that would keep on a ship.

I’ve still had no luck with using the bond to look through Oikawa’s eyes. I don’t really know why it worked the first time, but I’m going to keep trying until it works again. Maybe I’ll be able to recognize where he is again. Matsukawa is supposed to be able to create illusions, so why wouldn’t the hunters just cover up the area they’re in? Oikawa said hunters steal magic, so I’m pretty sure that would work. But then again, why wouldn’t Matsukawa just make an illusion so none of us got caught? I think I need to know more about magic.

\--

Oikawa wasn’t sure how long it had been. He couldn’t see outside to know. No one had come near him since Iwaizumi Katsurou except the ones there to give him food. There were always two people there when he got food. One of them would be wearing a tight bracelet and the other would have a pendant. They didn’t talk to him and he made no attempt to converse with them.

The mermaid next to him didn’t talk much, but OIkawa learned his name was Kozume. A group of hunters had come to Kozume’s cage recently to sedate him and take him away. Oikawa hadn’t seen him in a while, but he was dragged back earlier that day while OIkawa sunk as low in his cage as he could. When they were gone, he nearly pressed himself to the bars facing Kozume.

“Kozume, are you alright?”

He shrugged and wrapped his arms around himself, looking down. He looked like he was shivering. “You can... you can call me Kenma. They know my given name now.”

“Then you can call me-”

“No!” Kenma nearly shouted. “I still don’t want you to tell me any part of your name. If I know, they could get it from me. They’ve already tried.”

“What did they do to you?” Oikawa asked fearfully.

Kenma looked him straight in the eyes. “Pray to the gods you don’t find out.”

There was a loud clang from above the water and Oikawa and Kenma both jumped. Oikawa looked up and saw someone standing on the small bit of land in his cage.

“What do I do? Kenma? What do I do?” Oikawa asked, panicking. Kenma was as far down in the water as he could get. His tail was curled under him and his hands were over the back of his head.

Oikawa kept himself against the bars in the back of the cage. He only kept his eyes above water to indicate he wasn’t willing to speak. There were two men in his cage, like always, but both of them had pendants. One of them didn’t really look... threatening, but that was what the other was for, Oikawa thought. The less intimidating one was kneeling at the very edge of the water. He was messing around in a white box of some sort. He looked up suddenly from the box.

“I’m glad you came up so easily,” he remarked, staring into Oikawa’s eyes weirdly. “Make sure you do that every time you have a visitor and that will make everything much easier. You will get a choice every time you have a visitor.” He held up two containers from the box. One had a light blue liquid in it and the other had a dark blue liquid. “One of these will make you sleep peacefully while we move you to somewhere else. The other will be extremely painful but keep you awake and immobile so you feel the pain. You make your choice by your willingness to comply.”

Oikawa glanced down at Kenma, still huddled at the bottom of his cage.

“Don’t look at him, look at me. I’m not done talking.” Oikawa’s eyes snapped up to him. “I’m more lenient than most here. A slip up like that could make your choice for you. You need to learn your place here. Do as you’re told and you’ll be fine. Resist and... well... you won’t like the results. You’ll make your choice now. Stay that far away and get the bad one. Or come closer to get the better one.”

Oikawa moved forward slowly, not coming any further out of the water.

“Good. Now I’m going to use this syringe to inject this into your bloodstream. I’ll need your arm.”

Oikawa pulled his arms close and raised up the slightest bit in the water. “Why? How will it get into my blood?”

“Did you want the bad one?” Oikawa shook his head. “Then give me your arm.”

Oikawa shakily held out his arm. The man grabbed it and roughly pulled him forward. Then he felt around on Oikawa’s wrist before grabbing the syringe and pushing it into his arm, tightening his grip when Oikawa tried to pull away from the pain. Immediately after the man pulled the needle out, Oikawa felt heavy and it was hard to stay awake. He just barely caught the look of concern in Kenma’s eyes before his vision went fuzzy and then black and he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr @theprettysettersclub
> 
> I'm also now part of @thewritersquad


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nobody can catch a break in this story anymore lol

_Day 14_

I couldn’t find any books about magic before we left, but I don’t think I would have been able to find any time to read it anyway. Most days I only have time to have quick meals in between working and by the time I’m supposed to sleep, I’m so exhausted I wouldn’t have the energy to read anything anyway. 

It’s strange to be so far out to sea that I can’t even see land anywhere. It’s also very cool. It might be similar to the feeling of flying, but I couldn’t say for sure since I’ve never flown. It just feels so great when you can feel the wind blowing and the ship rocking underneath your feet and the sun is shining. I’m not really sure how to describe it, but I _love_ it.

 

_Day 17_

There’s another storm coming, apparently. I heard it from Kindaichi, who heard it from Aone, who heard it from Kinoshita and Narita, who heard it from Tanaka, who heard it from Captain Sawamura. It doesn’t look like there’ll be a storm. I mean, I guess I don’t know much about storms at sea, but the skies have been clear. That’s usually not an indicator of storms.

 

_Day 18_

Storm clouds have finally appeared on the horizon. It looks like the Captain was right again. I’ve also heard he doesn’t think it’ll be a big storm, so it might disperse before it even reaches us. I have no idea how he knew there would even be one in the first place.

I’m starting to feel more tired than usual and I’m not sure why.

\--

“How long have you been here for, Kenma?” Oikawa asked. Kenma shrugged. “If you had to guess.”

“Probably a few years. It’s been a long time. Why do you want to know?”

“I was just curious. Have you ever tried to escape?”

“Haven’t gotten the chance to. Some guy escaped just before I was brought in and they tightened security after that. They even have a place for mermaids that caused a bit too much trouble when they were brought in.”

“Where’s that?”

Kenma gave him a small, mischievous smile. “Here.”

\--

It was only a matter of minutes before the storm hit in full and everyone was rushing to secure what they could. The advance warning from the captain had helped, but not quite enough. Iwaizumi was glad they had advance warning at all. The ship was already rocking a dangerous amount. He couldn’t imagine trying to do _everything_ they had done in the past few days in the few minutes that the storm had really picked up. 

He was tasked with carrying things below deck along with a number of the other less experienced sailors. There was more than they could probably fit below deck, but they would all go until they ran out of room and then wait the storm out while the ones that knew what they were doing handled things. They were only doing things like this since it was going to be a short storm. If it was going to last more than a half hour, they would have everyone working.

The wind was definitely picking up now and Iwaizumi grabbed the edge of the ship to keep from falling off. He was amazed at how well some of the others could keep their footing, even with the ship rocking as hard as it was now. The waves were getting bigger, too, splashing up onto the deck, and rain started pouring down. Iwaizumi was the last one left on deck that shouldn’t have been, but he couldn’t find a way to get himself to let go of the edge without falling.

“Iwaizumi, get below deck!” Yaku shouted at him. 

He nodded and finally let go, starting to make his way to the stairs when the ship listed heavily to the side. Even the experienced sailors had to grab for something to hold onto, but Iwaizumi had nothing and he could feel himself stumbling backwards. His foot caught on something and he tripped. Usually the rail of the ship would have caught him, but with how far it was leaning, it was just enough for him to tip over the side and fall into the water.

The temperature of the water shocked his system so much that he couldn’t make an effort to swim back to the surface, so he allowed himself to sink. He thought he saw something above him, maybe someone diving into the water, but he wasn’t sure. Even if there was someone, he was too far down for anyone to be able to dive that far. His vision started to go fuzzy, maybe from lack of oxygen? He didn’t know. He felt fine, other than the fact that he wanted to pass out. There was definitely something dark swimming above him, getting bigger and bigger as time passed. It didn’t matter much, though. He was on the verge of passing out and decided to stop fighting it.

\--

Iwaizumi groaned, then coughed, then shivered. His neck felt weird and he tried to bring a hand up to feel what the problem was. He was stopped by the rope tying his hands together behind his back.

“Wha-” he said, confused. It felt like he hadn’t had anything to drink in a week.

“You’re awake then.” Iwaizumi’s eyes snapped up.

“Captain? What’s going on? Why am I…?”

“It’s a necessary precaution,” Sawamura said, offering no clarification when Iwaizumi tilted his head in confusion. “You fell off the ship during the storm yesterday. I dove in to save you and found you had been underwater for longer than any human would be able to survive. And I found this,” he pulled out Iwaizumi’s pendant, “around your neck.”

“That’s mine!” Iwaizumi growled, attempting to lunge forward to get it back, only to be kept in place by the rope.

“How did you get it?” Sawamura replied, and if Iwaizumi weren’t so focused on getting his pendant back, he might have been scared.

“It doesn’t matter how I got it, it’s mine.”

“Did you steal it?”

“Of course not!”

“So then how did you get it?”

Iwaizumi glared at him. “It doesn’t matter, it’s mine. Now give it back. You’re the only one who’s stolen something here.” He recognized that he probably shouldn’t be talking to his captain in this tone, but, to be fair, he was currently _tied up_ by said captain.

“You’re very stubborn, Iwaizumi. I’d rethink that if I were you.” Iwaizumi kept his mouth shut. “If you’re not going to tell me where you got this, I guess it really doesn’t matter all that much to you. I guess I’ll just keep it, then.”

“No, give it back,” Iwaizumi argued. “It’s a gift from a friend, now give it back.”

“What’s your friend’s name?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“It’s relevant because I want to know, now answer the question, Iwaizumi.”

“You won’t know him.”

“It doesn’t matter if I know him or not, what’s his name? Or, if you’d prefer, we can talk about the fact that you survived about 5 minutes underwater without air.”

“Maybe I dive in my free time.”

“Just admit-”

“Admit what? That I have a necklace a friend gave to me and I happen to be good at holding my breath? What’s so criminal about that?”

“Are you or are you not a hunter?”

Iwaizumi felt like he’d been slapped across the face. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that his captain would know about mermaids and hunters. “Are you?”

Sawamura laughed bitterly. “No. I was a mermaid. But I’ll ask again. Are you or are you not a hunter?”

“I’m not.”

“So who gave you this pendant?”

“Oikawa did. He said it was for protection at sea or something like that.”

“It’s not a magical pendant?”

Iwaizumi tilted his head. “I think it still has magic in it?”

Sawamura shook his head. “No, like one that allows you to use magic. This isn’t one. How’d you breathe underwater then?”

Iwaizumi shrugged. “There was something about a bond? I think?”

Sawamura ran his fingers through his hair. “Oh, Tooru, what have you done?” he groaned quietly and Iwaizumi wasn’t sure he was meant to hear that. When Sawamura’s hand fell, Iwaizumi saw traces of a blush on his face. “Sorry for tying you up like that,” he apologized as he untied Iwaizumi and returned the pendant. “Feel free to go and rest until tomorrow.”

Iwaizumi nodded and stepped out of the captain's quarters. Sawamura watched him as he closed the door behind himself.

“You don’t even know about your father, do you?” he murmured quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr @theprettysettersclub  
> I'm also part of @thewritersquad on tumblr
> 
> also highkey felt like daichi was ooc this chapter but that's bc he had to b really intimidating
> 
> also kudos to everyone who made the connection that daichi was a mermaid before now bc the proof was there, it was just really subtle (hint: reread chapter 3 and chapter 16 if you want to know what i'm talking about)


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaa i'm back. sorry this took so long to update and also that it's shorter, but hopefully the next update will be quicker and longer

_Day 25_

I’m back to doing normal activities after falling overboard. The Captain hasn’t spoken to me since I left his quarters a few days ago. I’d like to talk to him and learn a bit more about mermaids and magic and all that, but mom said that mermaids don’t usually share their magic. I don’t know if asking about magic would be considered sharing magic, but I don’t think he’ll want to talk to me anyway. Unless he approaches me first, I don’t think I’ll ask him anything.

 

_Day 30_

We’re supposed to reach land again in about a week. Captain Sawamura hasn’t tried talking to me at all still. I’m not sure he ever will, so I’ll just have to find a library or something the next place we stop. 

I’ve been having these weird phantom pains randomly. Like my shoulder will hurt for a few seconds, but there’s no mark and the pain is gone as suddenly as it starts. It’s strange and I can’t tell if there’s something wrong with me or if there’s something wrong with Oikawa. I tried pressing down on the fingerprints he left again, but I still can’t do whatever it was that I did that day. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that I can’t. If this pain is Oikawa’s I’m not sure I should see what’s causing it. The fact that I _can’t_ see really should be an indicator that I should stop trying. But maybe that just means I should try even harder. Maybe I’ll figure out where he is or something and I’ll be able to free him. I know I already wrote down that I want to find him, but I’m even more sure now.

 

_Day 35_

I had a dream about Oikawa last night. I don’t remember much about it, but I know it was about him. I think I talked to him, but I can’t remember that much. I’m worried about him, though. I’m almost positive now that this pain _is_ Oikawa’s. It’s getting worse with each day, but I don’t know if that’s because he’s being hurt more or if it’s because he needs to heal.

 

_Day 38_

I think I’m getting sick. I pray to the gods that I’m not, but I can feel it coming. I have since a few days ago, actually. It keeps getting worse and worse with each day that goes by. We reached land this morning and I helped out as much as I could, but Tanaka told me to just go rest after only a few hours. It seemed like he had more that he wanted to say.

I can’t help but wonder how many other sailors know about mermaids. Perhaps Tanaka knows. He is the Third, so I assume the Captain trusts him. Asahi probably knows. He’s jumpy and nervous most of the time, but he knows what he’s doing. I mean, he _is_ the First Mate.

 

_Day 40_

I haven’t gotten any more or less sick, which seems weird. It was getting worse and worse, but now it’s just stable, I guess. I hope it doesn’t get any worse. It’s hard enough to keep acting fine as it is. I hope that I get better before we leave, though. Luckily we still have about a week here before we head out again. I’m currently confined in a room in an inn. I’m not supposed to leave, but that likely won’t last long. Compared to home, this’ll be easy to sneak out of. And I really don’t think I’ll be getting any more sick. I just have a feeling.

 

_Day 41_

I can confirm it was very easy to sneak out of the room. I met someone today that reminded me of Oikawa. She looked just like him, only older. I talked to her for a while and I learned that she’s a widow and lost both her son and her husband on the same day. Something happened to spilt up her whole family. I was curious about it, but it definitely wasn’t the kind of thing I’d push. ~~Something else similar to Oikawa, apparently they both trust me enough to tell me about important things in their lives.~~ She also said that she hadn’t seen her brother in a long time and that she missed him a lot. Her smile reminded me of Oikawa, too. It was bright and lively and showy, just too much to be a genuine smile. And there was something about the way she talked, brushing things off like they were irrelevant when they clearly still were. Especially when she was talking about her younger brother.

I don’t know, maybe I just miss Oikawa.

 

_Day 42_

I met the same woman again today. We talked for a while before she had to leave. It was really nice to talk to her and it’s weird, but I feel less sick while I’m talking to her. I guess I understand the part where she told me about her family now, though. I ended up telling her about my mom and how she’s sick and how I haven’t seen my dad in years. I just feel like I can trust her. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s how similar she is to Oikawa?

 

_Day 43_

I tried it again, seeing through Oikawa’s eyes or whatever it is that I did. I just had a feeling it would work. Well, it did. Now I know that I definitely shouldn’t have tried it. What I saw was… indescribable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> iwa is so oblivious. in case anyone can't tell, he met oikawa's sister


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's back! I'm probably going to get through the rest of iwaizumi's trip at sea quickly bc I just really want to have Oikawa and Iwaizumi interacting again (which is part of why this chapter took so long to write, whoops)

“Kenma?” Oikawa asked quietly, not really expecting an answer. Even though he and Kenma had a tentative friendship, half the time Kenma wouldn’t even respond when he spoke. 

“Yes?” he replied, just as quiet while blinking his eyes open. 

“How long are we going to be kept here?”

Kenma shrugged, slightly more aware now. “As long as they find some sort of use in having us here. I assume we rank among the stronger ones if we gave them so much trouble, so we’re going to be here a long time provided we don’t tell them everything right away.”

“What if we do?” Oikawa asked. “What happens then? After they know everything they want from us?”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not planning to say anything, are you?”

Oikawa shook his head. “Of course not. I was just curious.”

“Once they’re done with you, they take you away and force you to turn your tail into legs. Then they force you to work for them. I’ve seen a lot of mermaids forced to clean the entire place. They’ve all got weird necklaces tight around their necks and they never attempt to run even if they’re unsupervised. It’s much better to make sure they’re never done with you.”

“I see. Sorry for waking you.”

“You’re thinking up an escape plan, right?”

“You’re doing the same?” Oikawa asked in surprise.

Kenma scoffed. “Of course I am. Who here _isn’t_.”

“Let’s get out together, then. You and me. I’m sure we can figure something out.”

\--

The next time one of the hunters came for him, Oikawa resisted. He insulted the hunters, provoked them enough that they gave him the worse of the two shots. It was painful, nearly unbearably so, but at least he was awake this time. He kept his eyes as open as he could, trying to pay attention to his surroundings. Kenma wasn’t able to do this part because he had a much lower pain tolerance.

The plan they had come up with so far was to just try and find any possible way to leave. Oikawa would attempt to get some sort of map of the place by staying awake the whole time they took him anywhere while Kenma would try to pass on messages to the other mermaids there about the attempt. Though all of the others wanted to get out themselves, they would do whatever they could to help out. If anyone got out it was considered a win. In all honesty, Oikawa wanted to find some way for the rest of them to leave with them, but there was no way they could stage an escape that big. Not with what they had right now. They were outnumbered nearly three to one and none of the mermaids could use magic.

Oikawa wasn’t able to commit much to memory due to the pain, but he was sure that he would be able to do better the next time. They dumped him into the same room as the first few times. It was a simple room carved into the cave with a pool sunken down into the middle of the floor and shelves holding various foreign objects on them. He still didn’t know what they were for and he really didn’t care to find out. He was left alone in the pool of water long enough that whatever they had used on him wore off and he was able to move again.

“I hear you’ve caused trouble,” he heard someone say from behind him. He turned around.

“Katsurou,” Oikawa hummed, “didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon. Didn’t you say you would know my name by the next time we saw each other?”

“You seem to be getting too comfortable here if you think you can call me Katsurou or speak to me like that.”

Oikawa shrugged. “It’s not like you can stop me, _Katsurou_.”

Katsurou walked forward and Oikawa was almost surprised at how much he and Iwaizumi looked alike. He crouched down, nearly at Oikawa’s level, but he still had to look up to look Katsurou in the eyes. “You’d be surprised at what I can make you do.”

“Oh really?” Oikawa challenged. He hated this part of the plan, but it was necessary to find out just what they could do. He pushed himself up using the edge of the pool, bringing them face to face. “Prove it.”

\--

Iwaizumi nearly dropped his pencil as he was writing. He was glad he was alone because the other guys would surely ask for an explanation he didn’t have. Pain shot through his entire arm. He managed to set the pencil down before clutching at his arm.

The pain faded away after a few seconds, but Iwaizumi was wary now. He felt another pain in his left arm, but it was less intense and gone almost immediately. He sat down on the bed in the room he was still confined to. More pain was coming in various places on his body, but there was no clear source. Eventually the pain faded away, but Iwaizumi wasn’t sure he was completely in the clear just yet.

Iwaizumi bit his lip and pressed his fingers to the marks Oikawa left on him. The pain immediately increased, but he didn’t back away. Both because he was determined to figure out how to help Oikawa when he got back and because this time was different. Instead of seeing through Oikawa’s eyes, he was seeing Oikawa.

“Iwa-chan?” Oikawa whispered, staring at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Are you okay? I could feel-” Iwaizumi started, feeling like they wouldn’t have enough time.

“I’m… I’m… managing,” Oikawa glanced around the room they were in nervously. “Listen, Iwa-chan, you should leave. I don’t know how long it’ll be until he comes back and I don’t know if he’ll be able to hurt you, too.”

“Who- Oikawa-”

“Iwa-chan, you’ve gotta go. I’ll do what I can to talk to you again, but for now, you really need to leave,” Oikawa said, voice gradually getting more and more panicked. 

“I’m going to help you out of here, okay?” 

Oikawa nodded, looking around the room once more. Iwaizumi had a feeling that he wasn’t actually seeing everything Oikawa was. “I’ll talk to you soon, promise!”

The vision was shattered and Iwaizumi was left alone in the hotel room again.

\--

“I would say I did a fairly decent job of proving myself, wouldn’t you, _Tooru_?”

Oikawa gritted his teeth, lowering his head and shying away.

“I asked you a question, I expect an answer.”

“You did,” Oikawa forced out, refusing to look up, “Iwaizumi-sama.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eyy what's up i'm back and we're nearing the Exciting Part

_”Oikawa? Oikawa!!”_

_“Iwa-chan? I’ve got to-”_

_“Where are you?”_

_“Iwa-chan listen-”_

_\--_

_”Oikawa … find … worry … help.”_

_\--_

_”Iwa-chan, you … I … something … don’t … sorry.”_

\--

Iwaizumi jerked awake, eyes flying open. He tried to sit up, but his limbs weren’t cooperating with him. He couldn’t move anything but his eyes as he looked around, slightly panicking.

And then the pain set in.

All he could do was squeeze his eyes shut and take it. The pain was indescribable and if he could have, he’s sure he would have been screaming. As it was, he was completely immobile and mute.

“Iwaizumi-san?” Kindaichi. Of course Kindaichi would wake up now. Maybe if he pretended to be asleep- “Something’s wrong with you.”

His eyes widened. There shouldn’t have been any way for Kindaichi to know he was awake. He hadn’t responded. And how could he know. 

“I’m going to get the captain.”

Iwaizumi wanted to protest. He didn’t want the captain to be bothered by whatever was going on with him.

“Don’t,” a small voice says from the corner of their room. Kindaichi nearly screamed, but whoever - or whatever - was in the corner covered his mouth before he was able to. “I can fix him if you don’t tell the captain about me.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. The captain was scary, but obviously between the captain and some stranger hiding out in their room, he trusted the captain more. Apparently Kindaichi didn’t feel the same way and Iwaizumi saw him nodding when he opened his eyes again.

“I also want you to bring me some food every day.” Kindaichi nodded again and the stranger let him go. “His name?”

“Iwaizumi,” Kindaichi answered almost immediately.

The stranger put a cold hand onto Iwaizumi’s forehead. The chill of it reminded him of Oikawa. The faint glow coming from under the stranger’s shirt reminded him of Matsukawa. His eyes flicked up to the stranger’s face. Whoever it was was wearing a hood and he couldn’t see very well, but their eyes were definitely glowing as well. His breath hitched. Was this stranger really-?

“You figured me out so easily?” the stranger said quietly. At this point Iwaizumi was fairly certain that’s just how quiet their voice normally was. “Ah, I guess I shouldn’t have been so lazy with my disguise then.”

Iwaizumi felt all of his limbs relaxing, the tension draining from them. The pain dulled, still very present, but less painful. “Who are you?” he asked as soon as he was able.

“You can call me Kunimi and, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, I’m a mermaid.”

\--

_Day 98_

Apparently Kindaichi and I have decided to keep a mermaid in our room with us. I’m a bit worried worried that Kunimi (the mermaid) would be difficult to keep a secret.

 

_Day 107_

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

All he wants to do is sleep through the day and at night he’s content to keep himself preoccupied with whatever he does at night. It’s a little unnerving to have him in the room with us while we’re asleep, but I’m actually sleeping better now that he’s around.

Maybe it’s something to do with his magic?

 

_Day 114_

It’s a little more than a little unnerving by now. I have no idea what Kunimi does while we sleep, but it seems like nothing. I know he’s awake, though.

Kindaichi doesn’t seem to have the same problem. I wish I could be so at ease. I just find Kunimi… unsettling.

\--

“What _are_ you?” Kunimi asked one night. Iwaizumi had, honestly, forgotten that he was there.

“What?” he asked after a pause where he hadn’t realized Kunimi was talking to him.

“I said what are you?” he repeated.

“I’m human, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

Kunimi narrowed his eyes and stared at him. Iwaizumi really wished Kindaichi was here. He never really knew how to interact with Kunimi alone, but Kindaichi seemed to be much better at it. “You’re not.”

“I think I would know if I’m human or not.”

“You’ve got a bond with a mermaid, don’t you?” Kunimi said, sounding almost bored with Iwaizumi’s confusion.

“Well-”

“If you were human, it wouldn’t have lasted this long or be this strong. You wouldn’t be able to feel their pain like you do. You can talk to them too, right?” Iwaizumi nodded. “So what are you?”

“ _I’m human_. I know I am,” Iwaizumi argued, but he was beginning to doubt the truth in his words. His mom knew a lot about magic. He didn’t know anything about his father, so he might be the one that wasn’t human. “I… what else would I be?”

Kunimi shrugged. “I thought you knew you weren’t human. Kindaichi’s not. He knows you’re not human.”

“Kindaichi isn’t human?”

“Most of the crew isn’t. You really didn’t know?”

Iwaizumi shook his head. “How could I have?”

“I just thought that you would know because most of the rest of them know about each other. Guess I was wrong.”

\--

_Day 120_

I don’t have much else to say, but it’s worth writing down that according to Kunimi, I’m not human.

 

_Day 125_

It’s been bothering me, actually. I don’t know what else I’d be. I know I’m human. I can’t be anything else, can I? My mom is human, she has to be. If she had any sort of magic, she could heal herself. Right? She wouldn’t be in the state she is if she could heal herself with magic.

Ahhh fuck.

 

_Day 143_

Maybe I could talk to my mom about this. She might know something at least. She knew about mermaids and their magic. Maybe she’ll know about whatever’s going on with me.

 

_Day 150_

So the captain found out about Kunimi. Well, Kyoutani found out about Kunimi. And then the captain found out. I think he’s going easier on us than he should have been, but I’m not complaining. I think it has something to do with how Kunimi is a mermaid.

 

_Day 151_

I guess Kunimi is our new roommate. I’m glad that there’s only about a month left. I can’t wait to get home.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd just like to say welcome back hanamaki and matsukawa

Hanamaki heard a knock on his front door. He held himself back from practically running at the door. Iwaizumi was due back any day now and he couldn’t wait.

He threw the door open and-

“Matsukawa?”

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Matsukawa sighed, slumping in relief.

“What are you- How are you-?” Hanamaki asked, hoping that Matsukawa got the idea.

“I may have made a little bit of an impulse decision. Can I come in?” Hanamaki nodded and stepped aside, closing the door after Matsukawa was in his house. “Is there anyone else here?”

“My family’s here, but we can talk in my room.”

“Okay.”

Hanamaki lead Matsukawa through his house until they reach his room. “Oi. Tsubasa. Leave. I want my room to myself.”

“Takahiro,” his brother whined, “I was here first.”

“I have important things to do.”

Tsubasa looked behind him at Matsukawa, who gave a small wave. “I’m sure you do.”

“We have to have an _adult_ conversation.”

Tsubasa rolled his eyes. “You’re not even an adult until next week.”

“I’m still older and I _will_ physically remove you from this room. Leave.”

“Fine, but don’t mess up any of my half of the room.”

Hanamaki sighed once his brother left the room and closed the door behind him. “Sorry about him.”

Matsukawa shrugged. “It’s nothing really.”

“What happened with you?” Hanamaki asked, sitting on the floor and inviting Matsukawa to sit with him.

“Well, I kinda ran away? If that’s what you could call it. I want to find Oikawa. I spent a lot of time moping, but now I’m ready to actually take action.”

“But how are you _here_?” Hanamaki asked in wonder.

“I learned how to make myself legs,” he responded, messing with his necklace. “In the non-painful way.”

“There’s a painful way?”

Matsukawa nodded. “The painful way is just drying out your scales. They’ll fall off and you’ll have legs. The non-painful way uses magic. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that I want to find Oikawa and I need your and Iwaizumi’s help.”

\--

Iwaizumi took a deep breath before opening the door to his house. Takara immediately jumped into his arms, barking with excitement. He laughed as she licked his face. “Hey girl, I’m home,” he said softly. It felt nice to be home. He missed this.

He moved through the house silently. His mom was in a chair in the living room, talking quietly to a man he didn’t recognize at first.

“Mom? I’m home.”

“Hajime?” His mom turned around almost immediately. She stood up, stumbling a little, and rushed over to him. “Oh, baby, you’re _home_.”

“Yeah,” he said smiling, “I am.”

They stood there, simply enjoying each other’s presence. Their peace was interrupted by the coughs that racked his mom’s frame. The coughing had gotten worse in his absence. Of _course_ it had. Iwaizumi should have expected this, but he was still caught off guard. 

“Mom, you should sit down.”

He was sure she would have argued, but instead she allowed him to lead her to the chair she had been sitting in before. The man she had been talking to stepped forward to allow himself to be introduced, but as soon as Iwaizumi got a clear look at his face he knew who it was. 

“Hajime, this is,” his mom paused to sigh, “your father.”

Iwaizumi looked down at her and then back up at the man - his _father_. He was sorely tempted to say that he has no father. Instead, keeping as much of the venom out of his voice as he could, he said, “It’s nice to _finally_ meet you.”

“Hajime, be nice,” his mom said, but she didn’t have as much bite to her words as usual.

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. He didn’t care about not having a father. His mom was plenty for him and he was fine just knowing he was alive. All throughout his childhood, he had had enough. Some people asked his mother if it was hard raising a boy without a father, but there had never been any sort of problem. Even if he had wanted a father, he and Hanamaki were close enough that his parents were basically Iwaizumi’s own. So he never cared about not having a father. He did care, however, about his father not being around for eighteen years of his life and then trying to come back into it.

“I know I haven’t been around a lot-” _That’s an understatement._ “-but I’d like to get to know you better. And I’d like to show you my job.”

“I just got back from a trip overseas. I want to stay with mom for a while. If you can show me your job while I stay here, fine,” he didn’t want to offer his father even this much. He wanted his father to leave.

His father smiled softly. “I understand. My job is about a day’s travel away. I would like it if you could stay there with me for a while.”

Iwaizumi narrowed his eyes. “I believe I already said-”

“I will pay your mother’s medical expenses,” his father said quickly, “if you come with me.”

He bit his lip. The offer was tempting. “All of them?”

“Hajime, we should talk-” his mom tried to speak, but his father spoke over her. Iwaizumi’s eyes narrowed further, but widened in surprise at what his father said.

“All of them,” his father confirmed.

The offer was _tempting_. He knew it was an underhanded technique, offering to pay him like this, but he wanted his mom to be healthy again. He wasn’t sure. If it was only for a few days, it could be tolerable, but he didn’t want it to be any longer than that. He didn’t want to spend time with his father. “I-”

“We would leave in a few days if you want to spend time here for a while.”

“Hajime-” his mom tried again.

“Okay,” Iwaizumi agreed reluctantly. “Fine. I’ll go with you. But only for a few days.”


End file.
